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DON’S STORY. I suppose the story begins in the year 1942 when the young and shy New Zealander, Donald, was off to the UK to begin his training as a Fleet Air Arm airman. On July 24th 1945 the flak on a Ramrod raid on the Japanese Mainland resulted in Donald the Observer and Maurice his pilot, being forced down in the Pacific. The idea when hit by enemy fire was not to force land in Japan but make for the sea and chance recovery by the well-organised rescue backup of the combined British and American fleets. The knowledge resting in every airman’s mind of the current Japanese attitude towards death, we fought to die, they fought to survive, was ever present. In ditching the plane, a Fairey Firefly, Maurice did not survive but Donald in the back cockpit made it to his little yellow dinghy. A strange turn around because the most endangered species in the Firefly was considered to be the observer. Donald weathered quite literally, three days , being tossed about and even out of the dinghy in the ever proximitous typhoon weather and baked by sun and salt. Under his backside on those soulless hot days sharks basked around him and caressed the bottom of the dinghy. On one occasion he fired a flare, or at least attempted to fire one, but it failed to ignite and the ship passed by. Ironically Donald was the armaments officer of the squadron and the ship as it drew closer turned out to be a Japanese destroyer!
By pure chance the co-pilot of a US Privateer, a version of the Liberator, had a hunch that he saw something below on the sea. He persuaded his skipper to turn about and at last Don had been found. Eventually three large aircraft were circling him and through a sequence of signals a US submarine came alongside him. A sailor on the end of a boathook called out to the captain telling him that it was a limey. ‘Throw him back’ came the answer ‘Hey’, croaked the sun-cracked Don, ‘I’m a Kiwi’. ‘That’s OK’ was the reply and Don found a resting place in the captain’s cabin. The submarine continued its duties, attacking mainland oil refineries and bridges. Bombed and depth charged Don eventually reached Guam deciding that the life of a submariner was dicier than that of an airman. Via Iwo Jima he arrived back on board his carrier cheered all the way as he swung in a breeches buoy. The padres on board interviewed him and one asked him if he had prayed. ‘Oh yes’ said Don, ‘ Only once when I lifted my fist to the sky and said, ‘look here mate, you got me into this, you bloody well get me out of it’ The Padre’s answer was recorded as, ‘Prayer does work then’.
Donald died in 1986, it was said ‘of a broken heart’ after nursing his ailing wife Elsa when the Squadron was writing its story, ‘The Friendly Squadron’. A year later via those who wrote the book, a message was forwarded to Donald, which came via Portsmouth from the co-pilot, who had spotted Don in his dinghy. He then lived in Florida and was invalided and in a wheel chair. Fifty years on he had wondered what had happened to the British airman he had only by chance spotted on the grey waters of that vast ocean. A correspondence began between the two families, saddened of course by the earlier death of Donald.
In 1988 the American received a Christmas card from the very young Donald, Donald’s, grandson. It said…
‘Dear Mr. Pilot, thank you for saving my Grandpa, ‘Happy Christmas.’