Article stirs memory of former N.Z. airman

Press, 19 October 1982, Page 38

Article stirs memory of former N.Z. airman

A recent article in "The Press” about a memorial to New Zealand airmen in South Norway has stirred the memory of an Ashburton man. A wireless operator and air gunner in No. 489 Squadron during World War 11, Mr Norman Junge, remembers two of the four squadron members named on a stone monument at Utsiken in Norway. The memorial was built in honour of the New Zealand airmen who died in nearby Jossingfiord when two fighter planes collided after a successful attack on German warships. The momument was visited recently by a young Norwegian girl, Torunn Ronniksen, on holiday. She wrote to “The Press” to say that she was “thinking of those

men who died for my country’s freedom". Mr Junge, who was an original member of the squadron which was formed at Leuchars, in Scotland, in 1941. recalls the anti-sub-marine raids over the bay of Biscay made by the squadron in the first few months after it was formed. The squadron moved its base several times and went through several changes of aircraft in its four-year history. The original Blenheim and Beaufighter planes were transferred to the Mediterranean and the squadron con-

tinued with Hampdens, modified to carry torpedoes. During 1942, crews from No. 489 Squardon flew operations over Norway covering an area from south-east Iceland to north' Norway down the coast to Denmark. The squadron was disbanded for a- month in 1943 and all remaining crews — 70 per cent of crews had been lost, recalls Mr Junge — were transferred to other posts. Mr Junge, then a flight sergeant, was sent to Northern Ireland. When the squadron was reformed late in 1943 — the

crews flew Beaufighters. Known as the "Whispering Death." the Beaufighter plane carried torpedoes, rockets, and cannons. No. 489 Squadron combined with Canadian, British, and Australian squardons to form a single wing patrolling in the English Channel area. Mr Junge’s crew sank three German ships, the’ last a 15,000-ton carrier, in August, 1943. He intends to write to Miss Rannikren and send her information about the squadron and New Zealand.