AIR FORCE LOSSES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 228, 25 September 1943, Page 6

AIR FORCE LOSSES

OPERATIONS IN N.Z. • FOUR INQUESTS HELD (P.A.) WELLINGTON, this day. The coroner, Mr. W. G. Mellish, said at the inquests held in Well' ington yesterday on a number of R.N.Z.A.F. personnel who lost their lives on operations in or off NewZealand that the whole of the evidence had been submitted to the Solicitor-General. Mr. Cornish, who had authorised the holding O f inquests.

In each case the verdict was one of death through the loss of the aircraft in which the men concerned were members of the crew. A summary of each case is as follows: — Donald Hugh McKenzie and Jack Trevor Villers took off from a South Island air station at 7 a.m. on a flight to Lake Grassmere. Miss Rutland of Cape Campbell, heard a loud engine roar followed by an explosion in the direction of the sea about 8 a.m. Flying-Officer Harry Kinder, Fly. ing-Officer Charles Neville Turnbull and Sergeant Nepia Stewart were in a plane which took off at 2.22 p.m on December 8, 1942, to search for an unidentified merchant ship reported off the east coast and was expected back at 5.30 p.m. The last signal from the plane was at 4.44 p.m.

Selwyn Allen Sinclair took off from a South Island air station on May 29, 1941, for Otaki, and was never heard of again. Leading-Aircraftman John Ronald Orbell failed to return from a flight from a South Island air station.