I wish I’d realised this was on, but according to NZ Teletext:
“A dedication ceremony will take place in Auckland to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the air forces’s largest single day loss in the Pacific in World War Twp.
Seven pilots died in a failed attempt to rescue a pilot who had crashed in Japanese occupied territory in the Solomons.
The ceremony at Sir Keith Park Memorial Airfield in Western Springs will see the unveiling of a granite memorial plaque.”
To expand on this, the incident is known as The Green Island Tragedy. It has been told in full detail by Bryan Cox in his book ‘Too Young To Die, which is credited by many as the best book written by a pilot who served in the Pacific.
Briefly, a Corsair pilot, F/O Frank Keefe, was shot down into Simpson Harbour near Rabaul, and his No. 16 Squadron buddies were flying over him in their Corsairs trying to give him cover. They hoped he’d drift out on the current far enough from the Jap guns for a Catalina to land and pick him up.
Unfortunately the current took him into the shore, where he was captured and later executed. The other Corsairs then had to get back to their base at Green Island some few hundred miles away. It was night, they ran into a bad storm, and seven more Corsairs were lost without trace. Bryan Cox was one of two who did get back, but not before he had accidentally switched off his cockpit lights and could not find the switch again. He suffered tehn from spacial disorientaion and lost his wing men. In the end he’d resigned himself to the fact he was a dead man when a flash of lighning suddenly showed him he was directly over Green Island. He managed to land just as his fuel ran out.
I highly recommend reading his book, he tells the full story very well, along with many other tails from his training and three tours. Bryan will be there today at the unveiling. He is secretary of the NZ Fighter Pilots Association, and was involved in seting up the memorial plaque which is situated at the Motat airfield.
By: turbo_NZ - 15th January 2005 at 09:26
Well if it’s true about the government not being involved, then that’s a travesty on it’s own.
Hat’s off to Mr Keefe and all of the other brave RNZAF people who died in WW2 🙁
TNZ
By: Dave Homewood - 15th January 2005 at 09:23
I don’t know if the Government was involved in this actually Chris. They may have been, but I know it was mainly the NZ Fighter Pilots Association (driven by Bryan himself I think) and Motat who got it going. I know this because one of Motat’s curators, Bill Rayner, was telling me about their plans when I visited there last May. He was apologising for his lateness in meeting me because he had been talking with Frank Keefe’s wife and some others who’d come in to see if they’d put up the memorial.
I doubt the Government knows where Green Island was. It was one of our major bases in the latter stages of the war. It was captured by the NZ Army and an RNZAF station was set up for Corsairs, and I think Catalinas and Venturas operated from there too from memory.
By: turbo_NZ - 15th January 2005 at 08:44
Very interesting, Dave.
I also knew nothing about this until today.
Very sad, but a fitting tribute.
It’s great that the government it’s starting to actually look at what NZer’s did during WW2.
Cheers
Chris
By: Dave Homewood - 15th January 2005 at 07:55
Actually thinking about it, what Teletext said “the air forces’s largest single day loss in the Pacific in World War Two” is only referring to loss in terms of numbers of aircraft.
On the 5th of December 1944 two Hudsons – NZ2044 and NZ2066 – disappeared after possibly colliding. 14 men were lost in that one event.
There were also other incidents where large numbers were lost – the crash of Dakota NZ3526 on the 24th of September 1945 saw 20 men lost. This was admittedly after the war finished but thery were on their way home to NZ from Santos.
Also on the 5th of June 1943, Catalina NZ4006 crashed into the sea between Fiji and NZ killing 15 people. And Catalina NZ4022 crashed on the 27th of Jan 1945 near Ubenga Island killing 12 people. So the Corsair event is by no means the single largest loss of life in a day.
I just realised, I have an equipment box from a Catalina that my Dad sourced somewhere years ago. It is marked with the code NZ2006. I knew it was a Catalina serial and obviously came from that aircraft, but I never realised that Catalina was lost without trace. Spooky.
By: Dave Homewood - 15th January 2005 at 07:42
Perhaps in reference to giving seven lives whilst trying to save an eighth?
I agree, it is a very strange thing to say though!
Imagine what it must have been like for the morale of the squadron. At that stage of the war they didn’t lose too many pilots very often. To lose half your pilots and eight aircraft in one day must have been quite devastating for both the pilots remaining and the ground crews. A whole bunch of replacements coming in would have changed the whole nature of the squadron.
It is interesting that later after the war Bryan did a lot of research into this event. When Keefe was captured he was held prisoner for a little while by the coast, and then he was to be taken away in a truck. Apparently a Japanese officer who spoke English had looked after him and when Keefe was being taken away he knew his fate, and he asked the officer to pray with him. Imagine that scene, a wounded Kiwi pilot, scared witless, in the jungle, saying Our Father with a Japanese officer. Bryan tracked down and met the officer after the war. The news said Keefe died of injuries but Bryan’s research found he was most probably murdered. The officer had said his wounds were not that bad.
I wholeheartedly recommend Too Young To Die by the way.
By: Smith - 15th January 2005 at 07:26
Thanks Dave for all that. I saw the TV1 news coverage, very interesting – I knew nothing about this before today. Funny (strange) thing though – they (TV1) referred to this incident as the squadron’s “finest hour”. Am I the only one that finds that strange? Their finest hour = their worst? The cause after all was the weather, not the war.
By: Dave Homewood - 15th January 2005 at 07:12
The ceremony was shown on the news this evening. As I expected, Bryan Cox was guest speaker. He is now the only survivor of the event.
3 News sneakily used some footage of the Masterton-based Corsair doing a flyover, but the film was clearly taken at RNZAF Base Hobsonville and dated from the aircraft’s return to NZ in February last year. I don’t think the Corsair actually did do a flyover of this event, but it would have been a good idea though.
For those visiting Motat the new plaque is in the garden beneath the Hurricane gate guard.
By: Dave Homewood - 15th January 2005 at 01:02
I also found this link
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/news_national_story_skin/468633%3fformat=html
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January 15, 2005 at 12:49 am