‘They just got up day after day and kept going’
Writing an article in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis about Jude Dobson’s documentary on the Royal New Zealand Air Force was sobering.
One figure from World War II archives hit home: out of 6000 New Zealanders who volunteered to serve in the RAF’s Bomber Command, 1850 were killed. That’s 30 per cent who never came home to their family or the farm.
Over the whole of Bomber Command, 60 per cent of 125,000 air crew were either killed, injured, often severely, or became prisoners of war.
In New Zealand’s Air Force: Then & Now, Dobson interviews pilots and air crew from that period, including New Zealand’s oldest living man, Ron Herman, who still lives in his own home in Christchurch.
‘‘I would love people to look at these men and view them in a different light,’’ says Dobson.
‘‘It was extraordinary what they did. They just got up day after day and kept going.’’
New Zealand’s fighter pilots made up 485 Squadron, which was the highest scoring unit in the RAF’s Fighter Command.
Dobson interviews one of the squadron’s surviving pilots, 102-year-old Philip Stewart, who like Herman, still lives in own home in Amberley.
‘‘They were Spitfire pilots, and the thing about these chaps is they don’t say a lot.
‘‘I’d done my research and I said [to Philip] ‘I believe you’re a member of the Caterpillar Club?’ [A little gold badge was given to pilots who’d used a parachute, because they were made of silk].
‘‘And he said, ‘I’ve also got a Goldfish Club badge’, so I said ‘What’s that one for?’ He said, ‘That’s if you end up in the drink and you have to use a dinghy.’ I joked that it was a bit like the Scouts.’’
Dobson has a very personal connection to the RNZAF.
Her father was in the Territorial Air Force during the war and was due to take up a combat role on the day the war against Japan ended.
And her husband, Graeme, was a fighter pilot, flying Skyhawks at O¯ hakea, and was once on three-day standby in the 90s for the Gulf War.
That connection with the RNZAF was renewed last year when a family friend’s son graduated from the pilot school.
‘‘We went down to the graduation and I thought that people don’t know what the air force do and what they’re like, so that’s when I realised, ‘Ah, there’s a story here.’ ’’
Dobson says New Zealand pilots tend to be well regarded internationally.
‘‘What I gathered is that foremost it’s the quality of the individuals and it does come down to that New Zealand mentality that we live in a small country and we don’t rely too much on other people.
‘‘Our air force pilots have always been really well trained and again, that’s because we’re small.
‘‘Here, you have everyone under one roof. If there’s a problem, they actually get people in the room and solve it.
‘‘The smallness is actually an advantage.’’
New Zealand’s Air Force: Then And Now, Prime, Saturday