Wings Over Cambridge Blog

An update to the page on Arthur Cutfield

grsquadrons — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 01:46:20 +0000

Thanks to a little new information from Peter Hasselgren and Errol Martyn, I have been able to add new information to Arthur Cutfield’s page here:

http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/Arthur_Stapley_Cutfield.html

New Pages – New People – Added

grsquadrons — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 11:54:07 +0000

Today I have added several new pages on to the website. We have three more Cambridge-born airmen who died in the Second World War:

David Pullenger
http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/David_Pullenger.html

Maurice Victor Smith
http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/Maurice_Smith.html

Alexander Neilson Thomson
http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/Alexander_Thompson.html

I want to say thanks to Errol Martyn for his help with information on the above three airmen. Any further info on these men would be appreciated if anyone can offer more.

Another page is on my own Great-Uncle Ted Homewood, who is universally known as Bluey. He joined the RNZAF in 1940 and was in for five months before being fed up with stacking shelves in the stores and pushing aeroplanes around the tarmac,so he signed on with the Army. It only just dawned on my yesterday that he needs to be included on the website as he lived in Cambridge for several years in the 1950′s, and in fact it was because of him that my grandparents moved here from Ardmore with my Dad, leading to Dad meeting Mum, and the rest is history. His page is here:

http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/Bluey%20Homewood.html

Another two pages that I have added are that of husbad and wife Murray and Joan Lind. These two pages are very much works in progress, put up so that their son Alan Lind can see what i have so far and hopefully he will add more. Murray Lind was a No. 485 (NZ) Squadron Spitfire pilot, and Joan was a WAAF in the UK.

http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/Murray_Lind.html

http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/Joan_Lind.html

Lastly, a page that has had a bit of updating lately and will hopefully receive more as some significant information has just been promised by his daughter Barbara Good, is the page on Lancaster pilot Frank Stott

http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/Frank%20Stott.htm

The Cambridge Air Force Reunion

grsquadrons — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 10:57:05 +0000

This afternoon I have re-posted the page on my website that has photos of the 2004 Air Force Reunion that we held here in Cambridge to launch the Wings Over Cambridge website. I had removed the page some time ago as I thought at the time it was no longer topical, and was taking up vital webspace. However I have decided it is now really a great piece of our town’s Air Force history too, and deserves to be on the site as it was a very special event. So I have returned the slightly updated page here:

http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/Reunion.htm

Looking through the photos today has reminded me how special that day was, and how many great people came from all over, Cambridge, Hamilton, Tauranga, Auckland, Wellington and beyond. The unveiling of the plaque was very special too, and I recall the next day my best mate Mike Cater said to me “In the future you will look at that plaque and think of what you achieved, and you’ll think of the plaque ‘I did that’, and it will be there forever.” He’s right, I do look at the plaque often as I pass through Jubilee Park and I do still feel immense pride that I came up with that idea, and with the help of others got it made and installed. I am also imensely proud of the other lasting memorial I have created to Cambridge’s men and women of the Air Forces, the Wings Over Cambridge website, where their stories are told.

It is sad too to look back at the photos of this reunion and realise so many of those great old veterans and their wives are now no longer with us. They will not be forgotten.

New Airmen on the Website

grsquadrons — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 03:27:08 +0000

A little while back Errol Martyn kindly checked his database of airmen who died or were killed in RNZAF service (or New Zealanders in other Air Forces). Searching for the keyword of Cambridge he picked up a number of new airmen that I did not previously have on my website. I was very grateful for these names and I have since been piecing together pages on their careers and lives. Today i have managed to get a few onto the site. There are more to come, including a new WWI pilot and some post-war airmen too. But in the meantime for this update the new airmen are:

James Breadon
http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/James_Breadon.html

Winston Cannell
http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/Winston_Cannell.html

Ernest Cox
http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/Ernest_Cox.html

John Gilmer
http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/John_Gilmer.html

John Hawkins
http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/John_Hawkins.html

Kenneth Hansen
http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/Kenneth_Hansen.html

Keith Jack
http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/Keith_Jack.html

And
Joseph McNamara
http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/Joseph_McNamara.html

More will be added as time allows.

Currently there are 196 men on the site who lived in Cambridge at some point before joining the Air Force in WWII.

Another Update for Vivian Maisey

grsquadrons — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 05:15:42 +0000

I have updated Vivian Maisey’s page again today after making contact with his widow, Annette. She very kindly helped with details to fill in some gaps on the page, but there’s more to come as I have arranged to go and visit her in a few weeks time. She has Vivian’s flying logbooks from his RNZAF and Fleet Air Arm flying career which should shed a lot more light on his career. He flew from around 1942 till 1950, at which point he was invalided out of the FAA after crashing an aircraft into the English Channel. Here’s his page again with today’s new details added:

http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/Vivian%20Maisey.htm

The Passing of a Supporter

grsquadrons — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 01:12:33 +0000

It is sad to note the death of a great supporter of my Cambridge Air Force website project, Maud Walker. I met Maud back near the beginning of when I began to research the local airmen of Cambridge, because I believed that her brother Maurice Walker had been in the RNZAF. It turned out in fact that she had indeed had a late brother called Maurice but he was a different Maurice Walker of the Cambridge district. There were two.

Maurice Newton Walker had been a bomber pilot and his page is here:
http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/Maurice%20Newton%20WALKER.htm

Whereas Maud’s brother Maurice Alan Walker had been in the Air Training Corps, and a photo of him can be found here:
http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/ATC.htm

Maud however took a great interest in the project and so delved into her memories of the district in wartime and came up with many names of Cambridge people who had served in the RNZAF, and many other leads too. She’d known many of them, and had been the cousin of airman Jim Ross, one of several stories she put me onto. Maud was also helpful when I was organising the 2004 reunion of Cambridge Air Force people to launch the website officially.

She was a lovely lady, and I am proud to have known her. Maud Ellen Mary Walker passed away peacefully at Waikato Hospital on the 20th of August 2010, aged 89. RIP

An update for Vivian Maisey

grsquadrons — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 02:27:25 +0000

I have found out a little more information on Cambridge WWII airman Vivian Maisey, and have updated his page to reflect this. It turns out that as well as having served first in the New Zealand Army and then the Royal New Zealand Air Force, he also transferred a second time into the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm. Here is his page:

http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/Vivian%20Maisey.htm

A Wonderful Gesture

grsquadrons — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 01:42:01 +0000

I am absolutely overjoyed to have been the recipient of a presentation by Peter Wheeler, on behalf of the Bomber Command Association of New Zealand, a set of Volumes One and Two of Errol Martyn’s books For Your Tomorrow – A Record of New Zealanders Who Have Died While Serving With The RNZAF and Allied Air Services Since 1915.

These two books, and the third which has more recently been published, are absolutely vital to Air Force research such as what I have been doing with my Wings Over Cambridge website, the General Reconnaissance Squadron book project and many other applications such as questions that come up on the Wings Over New Zealand Forum.

In the past when I have had to reference or check facts in these books I have had to make a trip to the local library or the Cambridge Museum, which also has a set. However now I am so pleased to have my own persoanl set of these extremely important and useful books.

It is also really pleasing to know that this set previously belonged to the late Wing Commander Bill Simpson, the founding President of the New Zealand Bomber Command Association. Bill also lead the team that restored the Avro Lancaster at the Museum of Transport and Technology in Auckland. He left two sets to the NZBCA, and the Association has very graciously acknowledged my contribution to preserving New Zealand aviation history by presenting this set to me.

I want to say a huge thanks to Peter Wheeler and the NZBCA for this, and I’d like to also acknowledge Peter’s own contribution to the preservation of our Air Force history. He has also kindly presented me with a copy of his latest book, Kiwis Do Fly, which is a superb collection of wartime stories from members of the NZBCA, with 268 pages of veteran memories and wonderful photos from their pivate collections which have mostly never been seen before in print. Well done Peter, and thanks!

A few new updates

grsquadrons — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 00:20:07 +0000

Following on from the post last night I have added a new page for Sgt C. Hook RNZAF, though it is very scant in detail at this stage. If anyone can add more detail I’d be very appreciative, thanks. Here it is:
http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/C_Hook.html

I have also updated Harold Souter’s page with some more information on the air combat that tragically took his life:
http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/Harold%20Souter.html

Thanks to Papers Past I have finally also definately established the full names of two airmen who have had fairly basic pages on the website for a long time. I previously only knew their initials and surname, and though II had clues from a few locals as to whom they may nhave been, the Evening Post newspaper reports on Papers Past have established them in concrete at last. They are:
Maurice Bell – http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/Maurice_Bell.html
and
Max Ward – http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/Max_Ward.html

Again for Maurice and Max more information is sought.

Cheers everyone!
Dave

Two More New Airmen

grsquadrons — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 14:00:55 +0000

I have just discovered two more new airmen with Cambridge connections, thanks to the old issues of the Evening Post now available on Papers Past (http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/)

They are:
Pilot Officer Edward Walter Gillies Churches, who seved in the Battle of Britain on No. 74 Squadron (flying Spitfires) and was sadly killed in 1941. Edward Churches was born in Cambridge and possibly spent early life here before moving to Auckland. Till now I had thought that Bill Wells was the only Cambridge pilot to serve in the famous Battle of Britain. I’d like to find out more about Edward but so far I have added a new page here: http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/edward_churches.html

Sergeant C. Hook, RNZAF is the other airman who must have been from Cambridge. I spotted his name when his brother Frederick Norman Leslie Hook, an Army Driver, was killed and his details appeared in the Casualty List published on the 19th of June 1941. Their father was Mr J.G Hook of Cambridge, and records show Fred Hook was also from Cambridge so logic says that Fred’s brother, Sgt C. Hook, RNZAF, must also have been from here. I will add a page for him on the website too and hope that someone comes up with more information.