Our Father's War

OUR FATHER'S WAR

By

Julie Thomas

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

Julie Thomas on Smashwords

Our Father's War

Copyright © 2011 by Julie Thomas

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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This book has been created as a tribute to my late father, Flight Lft. Hal Thomas, who was a foundation member of 485 New Zealand Spitfire Squadron. He joined the Air Force as a reservist in 1939 and was called up when war was declared, sent to a training camp in Blenheim and taught to fly. He was on war course No. 4.

In August 1940 he set sail for England aboard HMS Akaroa and he wrote of his experiences along the way. Through the rest of 1940 and all of 1941 he sent letters home from England. At the end of 1941 he was posted to the Middle East. When he was eventually brought home in late 1943 there were only three others of his No. 4 course left alive.

After his death in 1991 I found a box containing over a hundred and fifty letters, both from him and to him, from his family, dating from his school days in the 1930s to the late 1950s. I have long been fascinated by the descriptions in the war letters and have decided to share them. They are one young man’s view of WWII, from the air and on the ground in his own words.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION: HAROLD LANE THOMAS

Hal Thomas was born on October 7th 1917 in Cambridge. He was the eldest son of Harold Tahana Thomas and May Thomas (nee Matthews). My Grandpa was an amazing man; he was the 7th of 14 children and was born in a tent in Houhora in the far north of the North Island of New Zealand in 1891. He was delivered by a Maori midwife, her husband was a Chieftain called Tahana, hence the middle name. He left school at the age of 12 and worked as a carpet seller for a major Auckland retailer, Smith and Caughey, travelling around the countryside on horseback. He married his sweetheart, May Matthews, who worked in the glove department of Smith and Caughey. When he went to WWI in the Army as a private, she was pregnant. She moved to Cambridge (two hours south of Auckland) and stayed with friends to have her first born, a son. She named him Harold after his absent father and Lane, after the couple she was staying with, Lane Taylor. Grandpa was invalided home after recovering from a mustard gas attack and met his son, who was by then 18 months old. He brought him shoes (which I still have) big enough to fit a 6 month old. At the time of these letters Grandpa was the head of a chain of furniture stores called The Maple Furnishing Company, which he had started himself. He was heavily involved in the Rotary movement and in 1959/60 he was World President of Rotary International. He died at 101 in 1992 and outlived his eldest son by a year.

Dad was educated at Mt Albert Grammar and Waitaki Boys High. He played rugby and tennis and was good at English. He won a nationwide essay competition with an essay on trees. He went to University in Wellington and nearly had a BCom when WWII was declared. He was a reservist so was called up immediately and he joined the Air Force. He trained at Woodburn in Blenheim, war course No. 4 with 20 other men, and then sailed for England. After converting to Spitfires he was posted to 258 squadron for a matter of weeks, before being chosen as one of 16 pilots to make up the foundation of the R.A.F.'s new baby, 485 New Zealand Spitfire Squadron, in March 1941. They flew new machines purchased by the people of New Zealand and his was called Mission Bay after the Auckland suburb where he grew up. The letters and later writings describe what that part of his war service was like. There is an obvious contrast between the two because of censorship, but he was able to explain to his parents what a squadron was and he also talks of specific losses. In late 1941 he left England, again by ship, sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, spent a few days in Durban and then boarded the New Amsterdam for the Middle East. His first four months were spent in Sheikh Othman, Aden, instructing and being the adjutant to the station C.O., and then another four doing staff duties in Cairo and flying with 233 Wing in the Western Desert and 1411 Met Flight out of Heliopolis in Egypt.

His last year, from August 1942 to August 1943, was spent as Flight Commander for 123 Squadron in South Persia (now Iran) and the Western Desert. The fascinating thing for me is that I never knew about this year. All the conversations I have ever heard about my Dad's war were about the eight months with 485 and since his death, Mum and I have gone to annual 485 reunions. He was extremely proud of having been a foundation member. But when I started to really read the letters chronologically and to examine the lists and comments he had made in preparation for writing his own memoires, I discovered a hidden war. Twelve months of service he never spoke about. And I believe there are two main reasons for that. The censorship from the Middle East was savage. Any mention of what he was actually doing and the letters, sporadic enough to start with, simply didn't get through. The Squadron was posted all over the desert, South Persia and Cyrenaica, and often mail was not forwarded. He went months without hearing from home and at one point he describes letter writing as futile. He wrote home when he was on leave, from places such as Alexandria and Cairo, a long letter on two weeks leave in Palestine and Syria, and the impression created was that his Middle Eastern service was one long holiday. I found a letter from Grandpa back to him that says that he knows the truth; that the air war rages in that part of the world and he knows there is much left unsaid.

Secondly, sadly, the reality is, no one asked. Dad was a modest man and, when he came home, he did nothing to correct the misconception his letters had created. He didn’t talk about 123 Squadron, apart from one newspaper interview for The Auckland Star, which thankfully Nana kept. In fact there are many tattered and faded newspaper clippings and, apart from the foundation 485 ones, they are all about other flyers, except for one piece of journalistic gold dust.

He came home and met my mother, Thelma Browne (a Cambridge born, farm girl, who was a W.A.A.F in the RNZAF stationed in Rotorua) six weeks later. Three months after that they were married and it lasted 48 years until his death in July 1991. They had three sons and a daughter, who between them produced eight granddaughters and two grandsons. There are (to date) seven great-granddaughters and six great-grandsons.

Of the people mentioned in the letters, some were important in all our lives. My eldest brother was named Richard, after Dickie Bullen, whom you will read about later. 'Pip' is the wonderful late Phillip Coney (the father of well know cricketer, Jeremy Coney). He and Dad started school the same day at the age of 5 and were close friends all their lives. They roomed together in Wellington, trained at Woodburn together, travelled to England together and stayed in touch throughout the war. Pip flew bombers and Dad flew Spits. After the war Pip, Val and their kids were a part of our lives. When Dad died Pip sent a letter to Mum and said he couldn’t come north to the funeral, not because Dad meant too little, but because he meant too much.

John Frecklington, or Freck as we knew him, was Dad's constant companion in the Middle East. He was a sheep farmer from Fielding and a lovely man; he came home earlier than Dad because he was injured. Gus Taylor was Fergus Taylor, the dentist, a large part of our lives when I was growing up. His eldest son, Digby, was a yachtsman and his daughter, Libby, was a year behind me at school. Peggy Coote and Clive Hulme (VC) were both distant cousins of Dad's. Peggy's parents lived just out of Oxford and she was a nurse. Clive was awarded the VC in Crete. Bill Crawford-Compton stayed in the RAF after the war, married an English girl and rose to the rank of Air Vice