One of the last Kiwi Spitfire pilots and a jet pioneer
Bill Warwick
pilot, farmer b September 10, 1920 d May 17, 2022
When Bill Warwick was a small boy he was taken for a joyride in a Tiger Moth biplane high above north Canterbury. The flight sparked a fascination with aircraft that led to fighting in a Spitfire above Europe and becoming one of the first New Zealanders to fly a jet plane.
But, once World War II came to a close, he soon returned to New Zealand to take over the family farm in Hawarden, north Canterbury, raise four children with his wife, June, and become an adored grandfather to his nine grandchildren, who knew him by the nickname Papasan.
After he left the air force in 1947, he never flew again.
His daughter, Paula Sheldon, remembers him as a hard-working, supportive and loyal father and grandfather.
‘‘He had nine grandchildren who absolutely adored and revered him. He just had that presence about him,’’ she said. ‘‘He just listened well and talked to them.’’
Warwick, who was one of the last surviving Kiwi Spitfire pilots, died at the age of 101 in Christchurch on May 17.
His life began in Hawarden on September 10, 1920. He worked in the Post Office and telephone exchange there before that fateful trip in the Tiger Moth, which took off from a country fair at Hawarden golf course and took in the scenic Lake Sumner to the northwest.
He joined the Royal New Zealand Air Force on August 17, 1941, just shy of his 21st birthday and as war raged in Europe.
After training in Tiger Moths in Levin, he was soon shipped out to North America, taking a nine-week journey on a boat full of butter and cheese. He crossed the Atlantic in a convoy.
His first operational flight in a Spitfire was a convoy escort across the English
Channel in 1942. He was part of 504 Squadron and over the next two years he escorted bombing missions and completed other operations across occupied Europe.
Interviewed in 2020 by the Otago Daily Times, he said he was never shot down, but had close encounters with the enemy. ‘‘I was chased a little bit, most of us were.’’
But he said he was constantly in danger. ‘‘All the time. Everybody was in the same boat. A whole bunch of you were in danger simply because you were there. We got used to it, and just hoped to be home for tea.’’
During the war he flew Harvards, Spitfires, Typhoons, Oxfords and Hurricanes. Once the war ended, he became one of the first New Zealanders to fly the Gloster Meteor, a new jet plane. It was a popular fixture at victory parades.
‘‘We thought we were the cat’s pyjamas. We were just messing around,’’ he told Stuff in 2012.
In 1947, he came back to Hawarden after his father offered him the family farm. He returned with his new wife June, whom he married in Essex in November 1945.
They ran the farm until 1971, raising four children: Michael, Paula, Timothy and Judith. The family then sold the farm and moved to Christchurch, where Bill Warwick became assistant greenkeeper at Russley Golf Course and head greenkeeper in 1975.
He retired in 1985 and moved into a retirement home in 1995. June died in 2012.
After his move to the city, he became a member of the Christchurch Brevet Club, which is for armed forces pilots. Former president John Lay described Warwick as a ‘‘rugged gentlemen’’, while current president Kevin Jones said he was a ‘‘lovely, quiet guy’’.
Daughter Paula says he was a keen golfer, cricket player and smallbore rifle shooter.
‘‘He was very honest and loyal to his family. He was very supportive of us.
‘‘The cards we received after the funeral were quite moving. People had met him and spoken to him and remembered him as being very wellmannered.’’
She said he was reluctant to share his wartime experiences. ‘‘I think he was happy just to have survived it.’’
But, over the years, a couple of details emerged. ‘‘He chose to fly single-seater aeroplanes like the Spitfire, rather than a bomber, because the mortality rate was lower. He was 23 and he was making those kinds of decisions about his life.
‘‘After a mission, once he was back over the channel to England, he would hedge-hop. They flew so low over the countryside that they would have to pull up to clear the hedges. It was the joy of getting back alive.’’
As I have mentioned in the past, authenticity and integrity are the watch words of heritage identification and assessment these days.
Both are defined in the ICOMOS New Zealand Charter and are qualitative terms that need to be interpreted within the context of reliable historical information and evidence of heritage value.
This can be frustrating for folk who would prefer an objective determination, for now and all time, as to whether a building or structure is or is not of heritage significance.
The fact that heritage experts do not always agree can also lead to disappointment and frustration, but that’s the nature of the beast I’m afraid.
One of the principal ways of deciding whether the level of authenticity and integrity of a building has been retained and heritage protection is therefore warranted, is by comparing its current state with historic photographs.
Having been taught by one of my children how to turn back time when using Google Maps [look for a small clock icon at the top left corner of the street view], I have found that even winding back a couple of years can reveal alterations and additions that change one’s opinion of a building’s truthfulness to its historic form.
The DigitalNZ website offers the chance of finding much older photographs that can show how a building or structure first appeared, before user needs, seismic safety concerns, and/or architectural fashions prompted changes to the exterior of a historic building.
As a case in point, the former Priestley Buildings in Cambridge appear on the surface to have changed quite a bit over time. They were erected in 1913 at the corner of Victoria Street and Hallys Lane.
While the two-tone colour scheme suggests that the authenticity and integrity of the building has diminished, historic sources put the lie to that and thus help to demonstrate why the building is scheduled on the Waipa District Plan.
In January 1914 ‘surgeon dentist’ GGL Taylor moved into a suite of rooms on the first floor of the new building, which had erected by Charles Herman Priestley, a saddler, county councillor and president of the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce.
Priestley’s business occupied the ground floor; Daniell and Anderson of Hamilton were the architects and F & W Marcroft the contractors. Built in ‘ferro-concrete’ at a cost of 1600 pounds, the new premises were hailed as one of the instances of the ‘progress of Cambridge’ in late 1913.
Judging from historic photos, Priestley’s had a suspended verandah from the very beginning, which suggests to me that it may have been one of Cambridge’s earliest examples of a commercial design mindful of the coming age of the automobile; verandah posts being fine when everyone is riding a horse but highly problematic when cars start bumping into them.
Thanks to the relief lettering on the parapet above its chamfered corner the building serves as a visible reminder of the contribution CH Priestley (1871-1959) made to Cambridge.
Married to Edith Garlick in 1904 and, after her death, Ethel Wilding in 1943, Priestley also served two terms as Mayor of Cambridge. Specifications for his pre-war building are held in the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington.
Despite its somewhat distracting contemporary colour scheme the building remains a credit to Priestley, his architect, and builders after almost a century.
With local body elections coming up, and with no relevance at all to the matter of heritage authenticity and integrity, I wonder if any of today’s city or district councillors have put their name to a building that will one day be a protected heritage item.