WING COMMANDER NICHOLL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 October 1943, Page 2

WING COMMANDER NICHOLL

FORMER MASTERTON RESIDENT. TAKING OVER N.Z. CATALINA SQUADRON. (Special P.A. Correspondent.) LONDON. October 20. Wing Commander Barry Nicholl, Wellington, (and formerly of Masterton), is shortly to command a New Zealand Catalina flying-boat spuadron. He will succeed Wing Commander D. W. Baird A.F.C. Nicholl, who has a wide experience in flying-boats, joined the R.A.F. in 1931 after being on the editorial staff's of the “New Zealand Times" and the Masterton “Age." From 1933 to 1935 he was with a flying-boat squadron in the South of England, operating Soulhamptons, in which he took part in three weeks’ flight to the Baltic. He was then appointed an instructor on all types of aircraft for three years and was promoted squadron leader in 1938, when he went to a bomber squadron. Wing Commander Nicholl was selected just before the war to join the R.N.Z.A.F. He went to New Zealand in December. 1939. and was appointed chief flying instructor at Woodburn till January. 1942, when he commanded an initial training wing at Levin, later moving to Rotorua. Nicholl went to Fiji at the end of 1942 to a flyingboat squadron at Lathala Bay and subsequently commanded the New Zealand headquarters there. When a New Zealand Catalina squadron was formed in Britain he was selected as its commanding officer. He spent several months in Great Britain at refresher and other courses.