In WWII, my father, Clive, one of the Greatest Generation, trained as a bomber pilot with the Royal New Zealand Air Force. His initial training, about which he had many stories, was on the DH.82 Tiger Moth at Harewood, now Christchurch International. In November 1943, it was a large grass field, so the Tigers, which are not fond of crosswinds, could always land into wind.
Dad’s bomber training was on the Avro Anson in Claresholm, Canada, and then he was posted to serve on Bougainville in the Pacific, where in 1945 he decoded the message to say the war was over.
Dad’s first Tiger story was of a “chop flight” with Flying Officer, later Squadron Leader, Ken Fenwick (1917–2010), who corrected something Dad was doing wrong, and he never looked…