Kiwi Spitfire pilots did it their own way
At age 97, Maurice Mayston is one of the few remaining veterans to have flown a Spitfire into combat.
Mayston can still remember the intricate details of landing a plane.
After training on Tiger Moth biplanes in Blenheim, Mayston entered the Western theatre of war in 1943. He was 21 years old.
He eventually ended up on the 485 Squadron, known as New Zealand’s Spitfire squadron, flying one of the war’s most iconic aircraft.
The planes could fly low and fast. They could reach speeds of up to 400kmh – fast enough for Mayston to fly alongside a V1 rocket and use the plane’s wing to tip the rocket’s airflow enough to change its trajectory.
The plane could also fly low enough that ground crews regularly found grass and hedge clippings stuck to its propeller.
Kiwis were ‘‘notorious’’ in the air force during the war for being free thinkers, he recalled.
‘‘If the instructions got in the way, Kiwis would ignore them and go ahead and do whatever they could proceed with ... the British were much more reliant on standing instructions.’’
On D-Day in 1944, Mayston flew in one of four squadron groups from the 485. The group of four planes shot down the first two German bombers over the Normandy battlefield that day after his commanding officer, Johnnie Houlton, decided to fly inland instead of patrolling the beach as they were ordered to do.
By the end of that day, the four corners of the airfield had bodies stacked ‘‘as high as a house’’ with flame throwers on them to stop the spread of disease.
Mayston now lives in a retirement home in Lower Hutt.