422282 Flying Officer Robert Weir Herron, MA, (26/7/1920-28/4/1944) and Dr David Herron, (1926-4/8/1960). "swept to their deaths"

Flying-officer Robert Weir Herron, son of the Right Rev. D. C. Hereon and Mrs Herron, who is reported missing on operations, was born in Auckland but spent his school days in Dunedin. He attended the Otago Boys' High School and later Otago University where he gained an M.A. degree. He then joined the staff of the Otago Boys' High School, as a resident master at Campbell House. Although Flying-officer Herron was only 21 years of age when he left the teaching service to join the Air Force, he had shown great promise of having a most successful career. He had an engaging personality and was most popular with his pupils.  -Evening Star, 12/6/1944.

Robert Herron served in 75 Squadron, RAF, which flew Avro Lancasters and was mostly crewed by New Zealanders. His tour began in January, 1944, with an attack on a "special target" - a German "V-weapon" site.

It ended with an attack on the German town of Friedrichshafen, which was manufacturing engines and gearboxes for German tanks. All of the 322 bombers involved reached this important target, aided by diversions elsewhere, but 18 were shot down by night fighters after the attack.

Robert Herron's plane fell not far from the target.  There were no survivors.  He was originally report "missing," then later "presumed dead." My thanks to the 75 Squadron website for information.

Two N.Z. Climbers Die In Avalanche

(N.Z. Press Association — Copyright)

(Rec. 9 p.m.) CHAMONIX (French Alps), Aug. 5. Rescue teams returned to Chamonix last night with the bodies of five mountaineers, two of them New Zealanders, who were swept to their deaths in an ice avalanche as they were climbing the 12,819ft Argentiere peak in the Alps.

The New Zealanders killed were Dr. David Herron, aged 34, a university lecturer, of Dunedin, and Mr Brian Williams, aged 29, a schoolteacher, of Wellington.

Two other New Zealanders, Mr Ivan Paul Bieleski, aged 25, of Orakei, and Mr Michael White, of 114 Garlands road, Christchurch, narrowly escaped death as the avalanche roared past them.

Three of the dead were Frenchmen. Among them was Mr Etienne Picard, son of the famous French alpinist, Mr Rene Picard. 

One survivor, Mr March Soukoupian, a Frenchman, who was swept 600 feet down the mountain face on to a glacier, was rescued by a helicopter and taken to hospital. 

Nine climbers were inching their way up the Argentiere needle when the ice fall started, said American Associated Press. 

One, making his way alone, was above the slide and was not involved. The eight others were made up in four separate groups of two each. 

Messrs White and Bieleski said they were caught in the early stages of the avalanche and were able to save themselves by digging in their ice axes. Mr Williams and Dr. Herron, who were below them, were the first to be engulfed. Their bodies were found later roped together. 

Mr Williams and Dr. Herron were among New Zealand’s leading mountaineers and climbed extensively in New Zealand. Dr. Herron ascended all but one of the country’s 20-odd peaks over 10,000ft and made several first ascents. Shortly before his death he arranged to join Sir Edmund Hillary’s Himalayan expedition to search for the abominable snowman. He became a member of the New Zealand Alpine Club in 1951 and reached full membership in 1953. 

The third son of the late Dr. D. C. Herron, a former Chancellor of the University of Otago and Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, David Herron went to Otago Boys’ High School and graduated from Otago University with first class honours in history in 1947. He gained his Ph.D before leaving for Britain last year on a Nuffield Fellowship to study under Professor Norman Gash, at St. Andrews University, where his father had graduated. 

Dr. Herron had just been elected a senior research scholar at Glasgow University, where he was to do research on Scottish immigration to New Zealand. He was to have left to join Sir Edmund Hillary on September 2. 

Mr Williams was interviewed for the New Zealand expedition to the Antarctic as well as for Sir Edmund Hillary’s expedition to the Himalayas, but he was not accepted for either because of a heart complaint, which, however, was not serious enough to prevent him climbing in the Alps. 

Mr Williams, who was on the committee of the Alpine Club, organised the shipping of the club's equipment to New Zealand, from London, for its expedition to the Antarctic last summer. He had climbed extensively in New Zealand and, with Mr W. S. Romanes, made the first ascent of the Black Tower, in the Hopkins Divide in the Southern Alps, in 1955.  -Press, 6/8/1960.

Andersons Bay Cemetery, Dunedin.