Yesterday my Dad began to tell me a few stories about his memories of living next to Ardmore during and after the war. He doesn’t often bring it up so this time I paid particular attention. There were a few interesting little anecdotes.

He recalled that the Corsairs that used to fly into the station would often crash on landing because pilots were unaware of the need to land tailwheel first (as if on a carrier, virtually stalling it onto the deck). Many pilots he says would land with the maingear and with tail up, and the weight of the engine would flip the F4U’s onto their nose. He said he saw this happen very often.

He also said that often things would go ary for pilots on landing and they’d try to pull out to go around, but the engine would die or th aircraft would stall, and they’d crash into their paddocks. Grandad’s farm was right at the end of one of the runways. He said one day he was in a paddock with Grandad doing farm stuff, and a Corsair did this, coming down right in the paddock. He said it hit nose down and the prop was still turning, It churned out the soil, burying itself till the whole cowl was buried. He said the pilot then managed to stop the engine, and as the plane was vertical, tail up, he said he saw the pilot climb out and slide down the fuselage to the ground. By this time the fire engine and a crane were already there to recover the aircraft.

He said that Ardmore’s fire crews during the war had big V8 open cab fire engines, and when a plane crashed they would do their utmost to get to the scene as fast as possible. He said that although there were several crash gates round the station (for those that don’t know, these are wooden gates designed to be driven through in an emergency, smashing off instead of the crew having to stop and open it), he reckons the crews wouldn’t waste time driving to a crash gate and back. The engines had a large V shaped wire cutter, and he said he saw them several times drive straight into anf through the wire strain fence. In NZ most farms and airports, etc., use a fencing system of posts with No 8 wire and battens. If the engine had driven through without the cutter it would take the crew’s heads off. But he said they’d go through like a knife through butter, and then jump the deep drain ditches to get out onto the road. It must have been very exciting for a kid to see.

He said that there used to be a huge paddock between Ardmore and nearby Papakura (which has an Army camp there) where planes often crashed. He said it was a really big expanse of boggy, peat land that was covered thick in gorse and almost impenitrable on foot. He said he knew of one Corsair that crashed in the middle and was deemed so hard to get to they never recovered it. And more interestingly he said quite a while after the war the Army was exercising in the gorse paddock in Bren Gun Carriers, and they came across a Corsair that no-one knew was even there. It had gone missing in the war, and had lain there for years (obviously with a pilot aboard).

I don’t know if it was an RNZAF one or from the USA. Dad says the US Corsairs used to often arrive en masse, and he estimated that sometimes two or three hundred would fly in off carriers, in groups of ten at a time. He may be over-estimating there, I’m not sure. But he said that often when they’d all landed they’s park along the entire length of the runway several deep and the whole airfield would be full of hundreds of F4U’s, including the RNZAF ones based there. That must have been a sight and a half. I’d love to see photos.

I guess these Corsairs were exercising before going up to the Pacific to do battle.

Anyway, that’s a few of my Dad’s reminiscences, maybe one or two of you will find them of interest.

A Change of Tact on the thread

Well, this thread has been fascinating, and quite successful. I thought I might change tact a little now and take a look at famous people who were killed in or by Air Force activities.

For example:
Al Bowlly (singer) killed in a Luftwaffe raid on London on the 17th of April 1941 by a parachute landmine

Harry Tate (Music Hall comedian) was killed in a German raid in 1940

Dean Paul Martin (actor, Dean Martin’s son) killed in military jet crash in Air National Guard 21st of March 1987

Any others?

(I’m sure a few big names must have becoem victims when the Luftwaffe bombed places like the Shaftesbury Theatre and other theatres, and also Cafe De Paris in London – but I can’t find reference on the net, too many unrelated matches)

Go off topic a little? lol

My main point in beginning this thread was about the ownership of the CAF NZ Wing aircraft. I don’t think we can pin going off topic on you DaveB – I don’t think the thread’s ever been on topic 🙂 🙂

If anyone out there has got an answer to the question about who used to own the Beech 18 and Harvard I’d be happy to hear. In the meantime, keep the thread meandering, it’s very interesting.

I have attempted to post back twice to reply to James’ comments and both times had computer glitches so they haven’t been posted, but I do see your point JDK very clearly. I am not completely insensitive, even if perhaps to some my posts may have eluded to this.

I fully understand the issues some people may have with the Swaztika, and with the word confederate. Both are symbols that conjur up a dreadfully shameful past. My point was that I don’t think the CAF were directly trying to envoke that reaction by using the word confederate – I don’t think they wanted people to think they supported slavery and were the Air Force of a long deposed and forgotten southern American country.

To my way of thinking, forcing the CAF to change its name is like the Indians saying George Lucas should rename The Empire Strikes Back because it reminds them of the 200 years they were ruled by Britain. Totally pointless and illogical.

More of this effort should be put into solving today’s conflicts and problems rather than wasting time trying to make people feel better about things that happened long ago.

Well that seems like a bit of a joke to me. Typical of the PC lot.

The word confederate simply means ‘joined by a treaty or agreement’. And confederacy means ‘league of states’. (Oxford English Dictionary)

It does not mean ‘country that promoted slavery’. It has nothing to do with that. The country once known as the Confederate States of America hasn’t existed for 150 years since it was conquered by the USA. I’m sure we can all get over it now and use the word for what it truly means. I think the word conferderate is very appropriate for an international organisation that bonds together in a common cause like the CAF does, to restore and display old aircraft.

Such a pity that the vote did not allow the option to defend the proper title. No wonder very few people bothered voting. I’d say it may have come close to a 90% majority had it been an option then.

Colonel Culpepper must be spinning in his grave… 😉