MASCOT FOR AIR UNIT

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24166, 27 January 1944, Page 4

MASCOT FOR AIR UNIT

BEDRIDDEN GIRL IN CHRISTCHURCH

(Official R.N.Z.A.F. News Service) NEW GEORGIA. Nineleen-year-old Gloria Lyons lies in the Christchurch Public Hospital with tuberculosis of the spine. Patient but cheerful, she faces a stay of two years. At a forward Pacific Base of the R.N.Z.A.F. stands another Gloria Lyons, a sleek Warhawk fighter, and in the pilot's cockpit a small typewritten note is pasted: "To the pilot: Gloria Lyons is our 4SU mascot. She is doing a long term in hospital and we want both our Glorias to last a long time. 4SU, December, 1943.’’ Four young New Zealand airmen for No. 4 Servicing Unit attached to a New Zealand fighter wing sat in their tent one evening reading their mail, which had come in that day. For one there were seven or eight letters, another had also received a good batch, but for the other two it was a lean mail day.

So they got their heads together and not long afterwards this advertisement appeared in a Christchurch newspaper; “Two lonely airmen wish to correspond with two smart young ladies, 18-21, with a view to friendship. Interests: Dancing, music, and sport. Photo if possible.” Among the replies came one, rather diffidently, from Gloria Lyons on behalf of herself and a fellow-patient. A few more letters broke the ice, and now a regular correspondence has been established. She tells the airman to whom she writes of what goes on at home in New Zealand; he describes to her what life is like in the tropics. It is amazing how things get round in these camps, but the airman did not have to stand chipping from his mates. Instead, the story caught their imagination, and when a Warhawk with the identification letter G was

passing through the maintenance hn the idea blossomed in some head naming the fighter after the bedridden girl and adopting her as the unit mascot. „ So. while Gloria Lyons of the Pacinfront line takes the air with her c f leagues to beat the Japanese out the skies, her namesake follows tnfortunes keenly and hopefully, and I thoughts of the boys of No. 4 Servii • ing Unit are with the welfare of oov*-^