Barely 10 years after the first powered flight by the Wright brothers at Kittyhawk in 1903, the military potential of aircraft was unleashed on the battlefield and beyond. This technological breakthrough changed aspects of the world forever, and warfare was no exception. In New Zealand, we are fortunate to have examples of this new military technology in the form of replicas in museums and the flying examples of Vintage Aviator Limited, which grace our air shows. Stirring and atmospheric though these machines are, they are only part of the story, and they are ultimately meaningless without a real understanding of the experiences of the men who designed, built, maintained and flew them.
In recent decades, research into the air war has evolved from a focus on the development of aircraft technology and the slightly romantic fixation on aces into the more experiential sphere. This is particularly true of works by Peter Hart and Joshua Levine, who have used oral histories, personal documents and memoirs to explore this theme.1 Even in United Kingdom archives, the stock of such primary sources is finite and represents only a small sample of those who took part. The enforced repetition of works of memory, such as Sagittarius Rising by Cecil Lewis, the writings of Ira ‘Taffy’ Jones and others can also seem endless.2
In Britain, the BBC’s television series The Great War captured the accounts of a few Britons in the 1960s, and the Imperial War Museum’s War in the Air oral history project in the 1970s only just caught the last of the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) generation. Given that approximately 750 New Zealanders were involved in military aviation during the war, we already have a small pool of material to draw from.3 In some ways the all-too-common phrase uttered by descendants, ‘he never talked about the war’, does not apply. Perhaps more appropriate is that they were never really asked. There are some personal papers scattered across repositories, and a few recordings of radio interviews exist from their twilight years, but the interviews were brief and the questions were often about the aircraft.
This chapter looks at New Zealanders’ roles in the First World War in the air, allowing for the relative paucity of evidence and bearing in mind that no two people’s experience of war or perceptions of events are the same. These aspects mean that we are often forced to measure experience from the facts of a person’s career rather than their own testimony. Where possible I have drawn on primary sources, from the collections of the Air Force Museum of New Zealand at Wigram and elsewhere, to try to capture some sense of these experiences.
In New Zealand, few of these First World War flyers are well known, partly as a result of the march of time and the substantially greater public prominence of the Second World War commitment. Thus far in the centenary commemorations of 2014, some media attention has been paid to Keith Logan Caldwell, New Zealand’s ace of aces, with 25 victories and a rather larger-than-life persona. While the flying career of Caldwell certainly deserves to be told, how typical is he of the wider group of New Zealand airmen? So often the story is that of the survivors, even if they have left little in the way of testimony. There has been a tendency, then and now, to focus on the remarkable, like Caldwell’s close shave with death after a mid-air collision in September 1918. For most, the pattern of service was less spectacular.
Two potentially similar careers could also take different courses, depending on training, skill — and just plain luck. Caldwell arrived in France in July 1916 with only 35 hours’ flying training. Posted to 8 Squadron RFC, flying the vulnerable BE2c reconnaissance aircraft, he managed to survive five months and score a victory. For fellow Wanganui Collegiate old boy Lawrence Russell, the story was very different. He also arrived at the Somme in July 1916 and was posted to another BE2c unit, 7 Squadron. One month later he was dead, following terrible injuries to his legs from ground fire; Russell’s extended family would lose two more members serving in the RFC.4 If nothing else, these stories highlight the role that luck played in survival or death in the air. It also perhaps explains why Caldwell’s papers contain the roll of honour for his old school in Whanganui as a reminder of his own good fortune and the loss of many of his contemporaries, reinforcing his links with home and his own previously limited life experience.
Where did these New Zealanders come from, and how did they come to serve in the aviation services? Some, such as Lawrence Russell, were living in Britain and chose that service. This reflected close familial ties with the ‘Mother Country’. Others transferred in from the British, Australian and New Zealand armies. Future Air Commodore Trevor ‘Tiny’ White was serving with the Mounted Brigade in Egypt.5 His nickname accurately reflected his physical stature. Having already been offered a commission in the New Zealand Army if he returned home, he later recalled:
In mid October (1916) the Brigade Commander, General Chaytor summoned me saying ‘The Royal Flying Corps is now looking for lightweights!’ This caught me completely unawares. It offered a new and exciting future. Aeroplanes were now being produced in England with stable characteristics, were easy to fly and would allow for more effective loads. I bid my brumby farewell and reported to the Royal Flying Corps Depot at Heliopolis, Cairo on 26 October 1916. A few days later a cable from my father arrived ‘DON’T BE A FOOL! COME HOME!’6
The experience of training and the almost alien sensation of flight was recorded by a few New Zealanders. Harold Butterworth of Auckland was a relatively early recruit to the RFC and learned to fly at the Ruffy-Bauman School at Hendon, North London, in the summer of 1915. On 12 June, after his first flight as a passenger, he wrote:
There is no feeling of fear like one seems to expect, just a feeling of joy and exhilaration. When the engine is started you go shooting over the bumpy ground at about 50 miles per hour then the elevator is raised a little and all bumping and vibration cease, this being the only thing to tell you mother earth is left behind you and you are skimming above its surface. Then up goes the elevator a little more and you slide smoothly on a soft cushion of air upwards. After flying a short distance the engine is shut off and you glide quietly back to earth switching the engine on and off several times when about a dozen feet off the ground so as to keep a good pressure under the planes and thereby land more smoothly. It is beautiful going at such speed through pure air seeing all nature laid out below and having such a glorious feeling of freedom.7
Butterworth survived two crash-landings under training in 1915 (one while on fire), and was later shot down and killed over the Somme on 16 July 1916.
An important development in New Zealand was the establishment of two private flying schools: at Kohimarama, near Auckland, and at Sockburn, just outside Christchurch. Both were created to provide a supply of pilots to meet the demands of the RFC and RNAS in Europe. Kohimarama was set up in October 1915 at an old mission station on the Waitemata Harbour by brothers Leo and Vivian Walsh, and they trained several pilots who would later go on to success in Europe. Using flying boats from the beach, the trainees learned their craft. Aviation pioneer George Bolt, an instructor, later recalled the probable reasons for the Walshes setting up the school this way: ‘There were no aerodromes, they only used paddocks and the surface of the harbour seemed to be unlimited space.’8
The training school at Sockburn was the vision of Sir Henry Wigram, a consistent advocate of military aviation through his newspaper the Lyttelton Times. Wigram set up the Canterbury Aviation Company in 1916 and began training pilots in August 1917. The training was primitive by the standards being slowly and painfully developed in Europe. If the training was basic, so, too, was the final test for their Royal Aero Club of Great Britain aviator’s certificate. A pupil simply needed to take off, circuit the aerodrome and land safely, all under the view of an observer. Interviewed in 1967, Albert ‘Bung’ Parson (Sockburn pilot graduate number 59) recalled those early days:
For a pupil who wanted to learn flying, when he was accepted he had to pay a cash deposit of one hundred pounds … the company supplied a bed, mattress, dining room and kitchen equipment and that was about all … At the end of the training the government, acting on behalf of the RFC, paid our passage to England second-class, usually in a troop-ship. The government also refunded seventy-five pounds on behalf of the Imperial Government, as part of our flying training fee.9
Some of the sleeping accommodation used by trainees during the First World War survives at Wigram (as Sockburn was later renamed), the oldest purpose-built aviation structure in New Zealand.
By the end of the war, Kohimarama had trained 83 pilots and Sockburn 150. There were several flying accidents, but miraculously no trainees died in them, although one perished in a propeller accident at Kohimarama. The majority of trainees arrived too late in Europe or Egypt to see action after further training, but the two establishments helped form the basis for organised aviation in New Zealand.
On arrival in England, New Zealanders from these schools were subject to an increasingly complex regime, and were often effectively retrained. In the case of the RFC, after a spell at a cadet wing, where they were taught to be military officers, they were sent to one of several schools of military aeronautics. Here, they learned many of the technical concepts they would require for flying, including navigation, engines and airframes. Only then were they deemed fit to fly. Survival of flying training was a major achievement. Accidents were common, and some 40 per cent of those New Zealanders killed lost their lives in flying accidents. On completion of training, they were posted to a theatre of operations and allocated to a squadron.
The primary aim of the RFC on the western front was to provide direct support to the troops on the ground and intelligence for the generals and planners. The art of aerial reconnaissance was perfected gradually and forced to adapt to changes in the nature of the war, just like the infantry and artillery. Henry Hugh Blackwell of Kaiapoi learned to fly at Kohimarama and found himself performing the key role of corps squadron pilot on the western front, flying the RE8 in direct support of the British Army. The fundamental importance of this role was stressed in a letter home on 18 June 1918, which also explained just how dangerous it was, particularly from anti-aircraft fire (‘archie’):
This morning we were on photography. Burke and I had really a ‘hell’ of a time … Just behind our line at 8000 feet we were supposed to be met by an escort of our scouts but the beggars didn’t turn up. As the photos were urgently required, as a chap yesterday failed to get them, we had to sail over on our own. Archie was a cow, absolutely; we got it hot as soon as we approached the lines. All around us were black bursts; I can tell you it was a rotten business dodging them. The gunners try and guess which way you will turn and you try to turn the opposite. We had three trips in and out before we got our exposures and each time we were chased out by Huns and Archie.10
Blackwell’s photographs were successfully developed and analysed, his mission therefore achieving its objective for the intelligence war. In addition, pilots like Blackwell also spotted targets and corrected fire for the artillery.
To counter these roving reconnaissance and artillery-spotting aircraft, both sides deployed scouts or fighters. The cult of the fighter ace has dominated the way in which the war in the air is considered, with the contributions of Richthofen, Ball, Bishop, Guynemer, McCudden, Mannock and Rickenbacker permeating popular war mythology. However, the contemporary propaganda fame and resonance of these figures has ensured that some brave men, such as Blackwell, have been forgotten, as is the unglamorous work they did for the army. Add to this the fictitious (but accurate in detail) activities of James Bigglesworth (‘Biggles’), written by First World War bomber pilot and prisoner-of-war W. E. Johns, and the legendary status of these original aces is complete.
Fighter pilots were important, though, and like others they had to learn their craft. Ronald Bannerman had trained at Kohimarama in 1917 and began his career in February 1918 with 79 Squadron, flying the excellent new Sopwith Dolphin. Few personal accounts of aerial combat (other than official reports) by New Zealanders survive, but Bannerman described an early combat he had in April 1918 in his diary:
Went on a patrol over Mounil [sic] and found an Albatros 2-seater. Attacked him from wing tip and then swung on his tail. His observer shot pretty well but my second burst apparently hit him as he sank back into the cockpit and stopped firing. I only had one gun working and that jammed but I think the Hun went down in a spin but could not see very much owing to the clouds. The Archie people may have seen him go down. The Hun put two bullets into my bus and I have to have a new wing on one side. It was just a shooting match in which I had the luck to come off best.11
Despite his modesty, the kill was not confirmed. It would be another five months before Bannerman got his first kill. In fact he destroyed five aircraft in August 1918 alone, and by the war’s end had the remarkable total of 17.
By the time Bannerman was at his peak, the air war had become an industrial numbers game and the Germans were losing, just as they were on the ground. RAF pilots now arrived with better and fuller training, sometimes up to 100 hours. But many did not have as much time as Bannerman to hone their craft in this intense situation. Take, for example, Stuart Herbert Richardson, some of whose rare and informative letters have survived and are held at Wigram. Born in Dunedin, Richardson was working in London when he joined the RFC in October 1917. On completion of his training, he was posted to France and 3 Squadron RAF in August 1918. The unit operated the iconic Sopwith Camel, one of the great fighters of the war, but potentially deadly to an inexperienced pilot like Richardson. On 8 September 1918, his Camel’s engine failed on take-off and he crashed. Although he was uninjured, he described this new experience in a letter to his family the following day:
Last evening in a horrible rainy gale I was sent up to do a job. A combination of circumstances, the high wind, foot slipping on rudder and failing engine made me find myself fairly out of control going straight for a hangar. I realised I couldn’t turn away successfully and must crash, so I did as little damage as possible by turning sideways and came down a terrific crash in an open space. I undid my belt as I was falling and drew my legs up and thus came out with a very slight bruising. I got out of the wreckage and had the fun of seeing chaps trying to find me under the engine as they hadn’t seen me get out. Everyone else has had crashes so it’s high time I had one. The old bus looked pretty bad but she is easily repairable. Crashes make one pretty miserable as you think you are helping the Germans very directly.12
Other letters paint a vivid picture of life at a squadron on the front line from the excited and sometimes amusing perspective of an inexperienced officer embarking on a great adventure, as well as the more mundane details of daily existence. For example, on 11 September 1918 Richardson wrote of their officers’ mess:
We have got Kirchner pictures all round the walls and great consternation was caused by a fierce old colonel bringing in a terribly straight laced pair of nurses. He came in first and said the pictures would shock them so we all stood round the walls to cover the worst up and they kept on trying to see what we were covering up. Very funny indeed.13
Richardson’s last letter was written on 21 September 1918, describing more near-misses and combats, with no real thought of self-censorship. He wrote:
The other morning while dodging one archie shell I ran into another and swerved in time to avoid all but two lumps which went through the fabric without any damage to the spar but I didn’t know the spar was not damaged and whether it was going to hold in the next dive … We attacked a few poor scared Huns with success. We all fire at the blooming thing and the leader is credited with the Hun. We carry over little bombs as an extra, and I’ve killed as many Huns in a few seconds as I would have killed in 6 months if I had been an infantryman.14
Despite this bravado, Richardson’s own experience of a brief lifetime was coming to an end. Just two days later, on 23 September 1918, he was seen to crash and burst into flames while on an offensive patrol. He is buried at Quarry Wood Cemetery. His active service career had lasted just one month, and illustrates the highly attritional nature of the later stages of the air war.
Given the dangers of death by fire or a stricken aircraft and the absence of parachutes for aircrew, survival in often adverse combat situations was clearly a challenge, but it did happen.15 Eric Croll of Timaru was serving with a kite balloon unit as a messenger motorcyclist, but was drafted in as an air gunner/observer serving with 43 Squadron on Sopwith 1½ Strutters. He had joined the RFC after seeing service on a merchant vessel that arrived in England in 1916, and joined 43 Squadron to replace the crippling losses suffered by the unit. Croll later described in his memoirs what it was like to be shot down by anti-aircraft fire, which research identifies as happening on 14 September 1917:
Another time, my pilot landed a piece in his leg and to my horror he was slumped in his seat and we went into a spin. I could do nothing as there was a 40 gallon tank between us so I just did as I was told — knees up to protect the face on hitting — we were in a violent spin by this time. 3000ft is a long way to spin and expect a crash nose down — but he must have recovered and flattened because I opened my eyes after the crash and we were in one piece — almost. An axle was up between my legs. This was right in the trenches and the Hun took immediate action. However, with the help of some infantry blokes we had our patient into an advance dressing station dugout in quick time. I never saw him again. The boys gave me some breakfast — blood and all — no chance of a wash — and I made my way back to the aerodrome by hitch. I lost my watch and hat but gained a day off. The next day, new pilot — new machine — the war must go on.16
At several points in the war, the technological and tactical edge clearly lay with the Germans and led to significant losses. The key periods of this ascendancy were in late 1915 and early 1916, with the appearance of the Fokker Eindekker and its interrupter gear; in the later stages of the Somme offensive in 1916, with new German tactics and fighter aircraft; and at Arras during what became known as ‘Bloody April’ in 1917. The resulting casualties for the British were far from the romantic chivalry often mistakenly associated with aerial fighting. The brutal death of an airman (sometimes identified by the enemy in photographs and documents by the type and serial number of their aircraft) afforded the deceased none of the anonymity of the dead in photographs of the ground fighting. In the relatively small unit of a squadron the effects of these severe losses on morale could also be dramatic — personal courage played a key role in aerial warfare just as it did on the ground.
Sixty Squadron suffered a disastrous period in the summer of 1916 over the Somme. Operating mediocre French Morane Bullet single-seaters and two-seater BB aircraft, in just seven engagements they lost their commanding officer, Englishman Major Ferdy Waldron, two flight commanders and eight airmen; three more were wounded. Into the aftermath of this catastrophic period arrived Second Lieutenant Ivan Louis Kight of Dannevirke. On 2 August 1916, on only his second mission, two aircraft he was escorting on a raid were struck by anti-aircraft fire, the observer falling from the shattered remnants of one to his death.
At this sight, a distressed Kight turned and flew for home, his nerves wrecked. For this he was sent back to England. He pleaded his case to return to action, only to be forced to resign his commission and return to New Zealand. In the light of the unit’s recent losses, the untested Kight’s panic reaction was understandable, but the authorities treated such behaviour with little sympathy. The exhausted squadron was pulled from the line to refit and rebuild. Kight was later closely involved with the ill-fated Hood and Moncrieff trans-Tasman flight attempt in 1927 and died in a civil air accident in 1931.17
The development of tactical and strategic bombing extended the reach of air power. Of particular concern to the British was the threat of German airships and, later, bombers. The airships had an especially sinister image in Allied propaganda, and so, when the first was brought down over English soil by William Leefe Robinson in 1916, there was genuine and gruesome satisfaction in the press. Prior to this, however, a New Zealander had contributed to the downfall of another of these generically termed ‘zeppelins’. Alfred de Bathe Brandon was from one of the prominent families of Wellington and a relatively early recruit to the RFC. Posted to a home defence unit, he served with 39 Squadron at night. Brandon is best remembered for his exploit in downing Zeppelin L15 in 1916, but he has also left a vivid account of the difficulties of night-flying and, in particular, landing with no more than a flare path to guide him. In April 1916, he wrote of an incident that nearly extinguished his career:
It is awfully hard judging the distance at night. Some chaps land ¾ of a mile from the flares when they have landed and of course if you do that sort of thing your chances are only fair to middling. The attempt which really put the wind up me was one in which I had got as low as 10 feet from the ground and had come to the last flare which meant the end of the good ground. It was a choice of running into something or trying to get up and over any obstacles that happened to be in the way. I decided the latter and opened the throttle, stuck the nose down to get the pace up and blinded on waiting for the crash. The chaps on the ground say I got over the hangars by two feet — if I had done the former I would have crashed into four machines that had landed at that aerodrome.18
New Zealanders also played a vital role on the ground, maintaining the aircraft that their peers were to fly. The ground-crew experience has been less explored by researchers, but warrants far greater attention. It is difficult to say how many New Zealanders fulfilled this role, but there were some. Sydney James of Hawke’s Bay joined the RFC before the outbreak of war, and was present at the concentration camp on Salisbury Plain in the summer of 1914 to train. He later learned to fly himself.19 Eden Smith of Christchurch was living in Bristol and initially tried to join the British Army. Declared unfit for overseas service, his occupation of ‘woodcarver’ must have caught the notice of somebody, as he was transferred to the RFC. He later carved several major works in schools and churches back in New Zealand.20
We should also not forget the small number of New Zealand women who pioneered female service in military aviation on the formation of the Women’s Royal Air Force in April 1918. Women performed a variety of roles and set the blueprint for what was to happen in the Second World War. On the one hand, there was Madeline Ranken of Stewart Island, who tore around the country lanes of southern England on a motorcycle and sidecar, describing her activities to an eager press in 1919 as ‘an exciting sort of life … and no two days were the same’.21 At a higher level, Harriet Simeon of Dunedin, already decorated for her nursing services, rose to command over 5000 women as a deputy assistant commandant.22
Considering these experiences as part of a lifetime, the end of the war presented another set of challenges for New Zealand airmen, not least what to do next. The post-war Royal Air Force was to be small, efficient and more economical in dealing with the return to traditional imperial policing tasks and post-war defence needs. What is of interest is just how many New Zealanders were able to carry on. Keith Park, Arthur ‘Mary’ Coningham and Roderick Carr would all rise to influential roles in the inter-war period and the Second World War.23
The creation of the New Zealand Permanent Air Force and Territorial New Zealand Air Force in 1923 formed the basis of this country’s military aerial capability. The former consisted of a handful of full-time officers and men based at Sockburn. Men like Tom Wilkes, Leonard Isitt and Sidney Wallingford had all learnt their trade in the First World War, and brought that experience home to apply to the fledgling service.24 The latter territorial group represented a wide cross-section of experience, from those who had seen action to those who had just trained in New Zealand. Regular refresher training provided an opportunity to re-live some aspects of their service, return to flying and connect with fellow air veterans of the First World War.
After the war, the commemorative ritual of remembering communally became widespread in New Zealand, and these veterans began to see themselves as distinct, with a shared experience. This was reflected in the select reunions held annually by invitation, and by the enforced gatherings at the refresher training courses at Wigram. With the outbreak of the Second World War, much of the senior command of the RNZAF came from this group. Isitt became the first New Zealand-born chief of air staff in 1944, while others took station commander roles, such as former fighter pilots Gerald Stedman and Henry Blackwell.25 Ronald Bannerman also finished his career as an air commodore, and was member for personnel at the Air Department during the Second World War. They provided an important backbone of both experience and tradition, which they handed over to a new generation of war veterans.
In the 1960s, with the onset of old age, there seemed to be a need to formally group together, as happened with other groups of veterans around the world, and the 1914–1918 New Zealand Airmen’s Association was founded in 1960. Chiefly created at the instigation of Isitt, Caldwell and Bannerman, the association had a regional structure, but met for an AGM each year at a different location. These meetings became local media events, and emphasised the increasing interest in the First World War after the understandable domination of the last war, but also the increasing rarity of surviving veterans. In a sense, though, this interest was probably too little, too late.
At its peak, the association had nearly 200 members, but by the 1970s the writing was on the wall, with dwindling numbers and the poor health of the survivors. The 1974 AGM was the last, and the minuted discussions reveal the reluctance to wind it up. Indeed, surviving members continued to meet socially at a local level.26 By the early 1980s, the last of these pioneers were disappearing; Bannerman died in 1978, and the iconic ‘Grid’ Caldwell passed away in 1980.
Perhaps ironically, these farewells coincided with the planning of the RNZAF Museum at Wigram, which opened to the public in 1987. In the years leading up to its opening, the embryonic museum was given the precious personal collections of many of these pioneers as they disappeared — Caldwell, Bannerman, Isitt, de Bathe Brandon and others. These formed the foundation for the museum’s collections, and its ability to tell the story of New Zealanders and military aviation from its very beginnings. Preserved within the archives are the individual fragments of this collective experience. In that respect, the spirit of these ‘Kiwis Rising’ is preserved, and their connection to the continuing history and traditions of our air force explained. Having been the founders and creators of many of those traditions, I suspect they would approve.
Notes
1 Hart’s series of works — Somme Success, Bloody April and Aces Falling — have provided a popular and readable introduction to the subject of the First World War in the air, largely based on personal accounts, an approach emulated by Levine.
2 Cecil Lewis served with 3 and 56 Squadrons, destroying or forcing down eight enemy aircraft. He died in 1997. Ira Jones, an American, served with a number of celebrated aces, such as Mick Mannock and Keith Caldwell, with 74 Squadron in France, under Caldwell’s command. He later published his recollections of the unit in several books, including Tiger Squadron (London, W. H. Allen, 1954).
3 This figure is generously provided by Errol W. Martyn from his own exhaustive research.
4 His brother, Francis, was killed with 21 Squadron RFC on 28 January 1917. Another relative, Antarctic explorer and mountaineer Lieutenant James Dennistoun of Peel Forest in Canterbury, died of wounds as a prisoner after being shot down on 26 June 1916.
5 White was shot down and captured while serving with 56 Squadron on 27 July 1917 on the western front. He later saw service in the Second World War, and was instrumental in overseeing New Zealand’s role in the Commonwealth Air Training Scheme in Canada.
6 Memoir: T. W. White, 1994/1057.20, Air Force Museum of New Zealand, Wigram, Christchurch (hereafter AFMNZ).
7 Diary: H. W. Butterworth, 1994/78, AFMNZ.
8 Interview: New Zealand Broadcasting Service with G. B. Bolt and H. V. Coverdale, no date, Sound Archive.
9 Interview: NZ BBC with Albert Parson, 1967, Sound Archive.
10 E. H. Poole (ed.), Letters Home — Henry Hugh Blackwell, 1916–1919 (privately published, 1999), p. 91.
11 Diary: R. B. Bannerman, 1983/195.4, AFMNZ.
12 Correspondence: Richardson to Family, 9 September 1918, 1995/258.4h, AFMNZ.
13 Ibid., 11 September 1918, 1995/258.4e, AFMNZ.
14 Ibid., 21 September 1918, 1995/258.4j, AFMNZ.
15 Parachutes were not issued to British airmen until 1926, due to an often-criticised policy and to practical problems in development. The reasons were varied, including an official wartime assumption that some airmen might bale out prematurely to avoid combat, and the practical problems of the weight, bulk and reliability of early parachutes. See AVM Alan Johnson, ‘The Evolution of Parachutes for Aircrew’, Royal Air Force Historical Society Journal, vol. 37, 2006, p. 32.
16 Unpublished Memoir: E. P. Croll, no date, 2004/320.6, AFMNZ.
17 Service Record: Second Lieutenant Ivan Louis Kight RFC, WO 339/54753, the National Archives, Kew (hereafter TNA).
18 Correspondence: Brandon to ‘Van’, 8 April 1916, 2011/233.7, AFMNZ.
19 Service Record: Flight Sergeant Sydney James, 1994/206.3, AFMNZ.
20 Air Ministry, Airmen’s Records: Eden Stanley Smith, AIR 79/919/101867, TNA; Correspondence: author and Smith’s family, 2013.
21 Colonist, Nelson, 4 March 1920, p. 2.
22 New Zealand Herald, Auckland, 30 April 1926, p. 15.
23 Coningham’s nickname was thought to have evolved as a corruption of an earlier nickname, ‘Maori’, as a reference to his New Zealand heritage. There are, however, several other explanations according to his biographer, Vincent Orange. See V. Orange, Coningham: A Biography of Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham (London, Methuen, 1990), p. 18. Park famously commanded 11 Group RAF Fighter Command in the Battle of Britain in 1940, and also saw command on Malta and in South-East Asia. Under Tedder, Coningham developed the RAF’s support tactics for the ground war in North Africa and for 2 Tactical Air Force in northwest Europe. Carr rose to deputy chief of staff (air) at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force in 1945, and later led India Command in 1946.
24 Leonard Monk Isitt flew two-seaters during the First World War, and became the first commanding officer at Wigram and Hobsonville in the 1920s, before becoming the first New Zealand-born chief of air staff of the RNZAF in 1944. He signed the Japanese document of surrender for New Zealand in 1945.
25 Royal New Zealand Air Force List, April 1945, and Officer Seniority Index Cards, AFMNZ. Wing Commander Gerald Lomax Stedman commanded stations at Taieri, Rongotai and Woodbourne between 1939 and 1943, before seeing service in the Pacific. He also lost his son, Michael, in action in Europe in September 1940. Blackwell served in a number of administrative and technical roles from 1940 at Harewood, New Plymouth and Delta (near Woodbourne), before being discharged as a squadron leader in 1944.
26 Minute Book: NZ 1914-18 Airmen’s Association (Inc), 2014/133.2, AFMNZ.