DELIVERY OF MOSQUITOES

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 25061, 18 December 1946, Page 5

DELIVERY OF MOSQUITOES

REPATRIATION OF CREWS BY AIR

" The Press ” Special Service WELLINGTON. December 17.

In conjunction with the Royal Air Force Transport Command, arrangements have now been concluded for the repatriation by air of all Royal Air Force crews engaged in the delivery of Mosquito aircraft from the United Kingdom to New Zealand. Similarly Royal New Zealand Air Force Mosquito delivery crews which have been trained in New Zealand are being flown to the United Kingdom to pick up the Mosquito aircraft which they will deliver to this country. “The task of returning the aircrews,” said the Minster of Defence (the Hon. F.. Jones), "will be apportioned as found most convenient between the Royal Air Force Transport Command and the three transport

squadrons of the Royal New Zealand Air Force. It is anticipated that a large portion of the work will be executed by the Sunderland Squadron, a unit which has already carried out at the time these aircraft were flown to New Zealand from England one of the longest single crew delivery flights in the history of aviation. “The transport of aircrews will be spread over the first six or seven months of 1947, the actual number of flights in any one month depending on the rate of arrival of Mosquito aircraft.

“As New Zealand does not control any organisation between Australia and the United Kingdom the operational control of all flights of Royal New Zealand Air Force transport aircraft will be in the hands of the Royal Air Force Transport Command between Australia and England."