R.N.Z.A.F. BOMBER CRASHES
Five Crew Members Lose Lives
MAKAREWA SERGEANT AMONG KILLED
(P.A.) WELLINGTON, October 4.
Overdue on a training flight from Ohakea yesterday, a Ventura bomber aircraft of the Royal New Zealand Air Force was later discovered to have crashed near Opunake. All five members of the crew lost their lives. They were: —
Flying Officer J. Martin; wife, Mrs G. M. Martin, Wellington.
Sergeant H. E. Day; wife, Mrs B. A. Day, Tauranga.
SERGEANT JAMES WALTER DOUGLAS McKAY; mother, Mrs W. McKay, Makarewa.
Sergeant F. W. S. Webb; mother, Mrs R. S. Webb, Dunedin. Sergeant A. T. Hill; father, Mr F. J. Hill, Wairoa.
The Ventura was on a three-hour training flight and was due back at Ohakea at noon. When it failed to return inquiries were immediately instituted and all the reports checked.
One report stated that an aircraft had been heard in the Opunake district and one man stated that he had heard an aircraft crash. Search parties were immediately organized at Opunake and sent into the district where the crash was reported.
When the weather improved an Anson aircraft was dispatched from New Plymouth and late in the afternoon it located the crashed bomber, about 11 miles from Opunake towards Mount Egmont. Night fell before the parties had located the aircraft and they were forced to give up till morning. At first light this morning the search was resumed and the aircraft directed a ground party to the scene of the crash.
The bodies of the members of the crew were recovered from the wreckage and taken to New Plymouth.
Sergeant McKay, who was 19 years of age, was the son of Mr and Mrs V. W. McKay, Makarewa. He was educated at the Waianiwa and Makarewa primary schools and the Southland Boys’ High School. On leaving he joined the staff of J. G. Ward and Co., Ltd., and at the time of his enlistment in the Air Force he was employed by the Southland Frozen Meat Co., Ltd. Sergeant McKay was a member of the Old Boys’ Football Club, the Makarewa Tennis Club and the Presbyterian Bible Class at Makarewa. His father, a returned man of the last war, commanded the Makarewa platoon of the Home Guard and is president of the Makarewa-Lorneville Citizens’ Association. -Southland Times, 5/10/1944.
Evidence At Inquest On Air Crash Victims
Further evidence at the inquest into the deaths of five members of the R.N.Z.A.F. who lost their lives on October 3 when an R.N.Z.A.F. Ventura crashed near Opunake was given before the district coroner, Mr. 'W. H. Woodward, S.M., at New Plymouth yesterday. The verdict is to be given by the coroner to-day.
The men concerned were: Flying Officer Jack Martin (pilot), 25 years, married, Wellington; Sergeant Harold Edwin Day (navigator), 25 years, married, Tauranga; Sergeant James Walter McKay (air gunner), 20 years, single, Makarewa, Southland; Sergeant Frank William Skottowe Webb (air gunner), 19 years, single, Dunedin; and Sergeant Arnold Thomas Hill (wireless operator/air gunner), 23 years, single, Wairoa.
Flying Officer M. L. Benson, medical officer at Bell Block air station, said that he was one of the air force personnel who took part in the search for the missing plane. The death of the men would, he said, have been instantaneous and was due to seyere body mutilation and gross burning by the fire that swept the aircraft when it crashed. Evidence of the finding of the bodies was given by Constable W. T. Short.
After the evidence had been heard Mr. Woodward said that his duty as coroner was to ascertain when, where and how the men met their deaths and not to decide why the aircraft crashed. That, he added, was the duty of a technical inquiry. -Taranaki Daily News, 8/11/1944.
The Air Force's enquiry established that the bomber crashed while in cloud and possibly due to a navigational error.
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