Wartime & postwar pilot
1922
Born in Shropshire England on 26 September.
1938
Enters Royal Air Force (RAF) as boy apprentice.
1943
Transfers from engineering to aircrew.
1945
Joins No 75 (NZ) Squadron as co-pilot/flight engineer. Participates in large RAF Lancaster bombing raids, including the sinking of the Admiral Scheer pocket battleship at the Kiel dockyard.
1945
In ‘Operation Manna’ drops food to the starving Dutch at The Hague.
1954
Emigrates to New Zealand, where, with old friend Brian Chatwick, he helps pioneer early regional airline services in the South Island with de Havilland DH89 Rapide aircraft, including charter flights to Queenstown.
1959
Flies with Queenstown-based Southern Scenic Air Services (SSAS)
1960
Chief Pilot and Chief Engineer of West Coast Airways at Hokitika, a subsidiary of SSAS. Undertakes extensive South Westland flying.
1967
Flies final DH89 flights on historic South Westland Air Service, New Zealand’s first airline. Retires from flying the following year, after injuries sustained in a forced landing in the Shotover River, due to engine failure. He later quipped, “I am the first person to go panning for gold in the Shotover River in an aeroplane!”
1984
Retires from aviation and spends the rest of his life in Nelson, where he writes his aviation memoirs.
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