PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICER

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24899, 12 June 1946, Page 5

PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICER

APPOINTMENT TO STAFF OF U.K. HIGH COMMISSIONER

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, June 11. A New, Zealander born in Feilding who went to Britain in 1937 as an officer for training with the Royal Air Force has returned to take up the position of public relations officer with the United Kingdom High Commis--sioner (Sir Patrick Duff) in Wellington. He is Mr M. Digby Roberts, who lived for most of his life at Wanganui before he went abroad. Mr Roberts’s active service with the Royal Air Force was relatively short, f°£. he met with an air accident in which his back was broken, and because his recovery was extremely slow he was grounded from his bomber squadron (No. 218) and posted to special duties at the Air Ministry. From 1940 he was a member of a special unit -under Sir John Turner, which controlled the efficiency and movement of decoys, which misled enemy reconnaissance and bombing planes by day and night. The decoys were part of the system of defence and concealment of Britain’s military targets, and were electrically driven mobile gadgets of various types. Mr Roberts served with this unit until 1944, when a medical board passed, him fit for return to the air, otherwise than as a pilot. He then volunteered for India, and was appointed senior officer in charge of air line traffic administration for the East India-Burma area, a post he occupied until the end of hostilities. ' '