SPLENDID RECORD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 December 1942, Page 3

SPLENDID RECORD

NEW ZEALAND BOMBER SQUADRON NUMEROUS ATTACKS ON GERMANY MANY DECORATIONS WON. INCLUDING SERGEANT WARD’S V.C. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, December 13. The story is told for the first time today of an air unit which has made history in the war over Europe. It is the New Zealand Bomber Squadron of the R.A.F. The squadron came into being in the following way. Shortly after the Munich agreement the New Zealand Government ordered 30 Wellington bombers —then the latest type from the British Government —and sent New Zealanders to ferry the bombers back. When the war started the New Zealand Government put these bombers at the disposal of the British Government, and the New Zealand airmen stayed on to fight. They were formed into a separate unit of the Bomber Command —the 73rd New Zealand Squadron. They still fly Wellingtons. The squadron’s record is best told from figures. It has bombed more than 160 separate targets in Germany. It has been over Berlin nine times, Cologne- 22 times, and Hamburg 20 times. It has won 95 decorations or mentions in dispatches. These include New Zealand’s first Victoria Cross of the war, awarded to Sergeant Ward for climbing out on to the wing of a Wellington to extinguish a fire. In the words of Air Vice Marshal Baldwin: “The New Zealand Bomber Squadron has maintained an operational record unsurpassed by any other group in Bomber Command.”