War-Time Friends Meet

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31000, 4 March 1966, Page 14

War-Time Friends Meet

Three war-time friends, two New Zealanders and a Scotsman, who last flew together in an R.A.F. Liberator in 1945, met again for the first time in Christchurch yesterday. They are Messrs R. Jones and L. Keating, of Christchurch, former R.N.Z.A.F. aircrew members, and Captain J. R. Jeffrey, chairman of the British Airline Pilots’ Association. All three served in the R.A.F.’s 53rd and 86th Squadrons. Captain Jeffrey is in New Zealand for two weeks to lead the British delegation of seven to the annual conference of the International Federation of Airline Pilots’ As-

sociations, to be held in Auckland next week. He said yesterday the three men had kept in touch over the last 21 years by occasional letters and exchanges of family photographs, and Christmas cards. This is Captain Jeffrey’s fisrt visit to New Zealand. He is a pilot with 8.0.A.C. and flies Boeing 707 s on the Atlantic and Caribbean routes. In the British A.L.P.A. there were about 3700 members, he said. Outside the United States it was the largest pilots’ association in the free world. “They’re supposed to have something like 20,000 in Russia,” he said.

About 100 pilots from the world’s leading airlines will attend the Auckland conference, the first time the international body has met in New Zealand. In the photograph, from left, are Mr Keating, Captain Jeffrey and Mr Jones.