Bomber crew reunites

Press, 28 November 1984, Page 14

Bomber crew reunites

PA Dunedin Messrs Basil Fish and Lofty Hebbard last met in 1945, but when they were reunited in Mosgiel the years between could just as well have been last week. They were part of a seven-man team crewing a Lancaster bomber in World War 11. Mr Fish is visiting New Zealand from England to see fellow members — Mr Hebbard in Mosgiel and Mr Arthur Joplin in Auckland. They have a special bond that came from spending their “working” hours crammed into the confined quarters of a bomber, never really expecting to survive, but depending totally on one another to do so. “You only needed one of the crew to slip up and you have had it," Mr Hebbard said. Messrs Fish and Hebbard flew together from March to December, 1944, in the “Dambusters,” 617 squadron. While both finished their training too late to take )art in the famous damjusting raids on the Ruhr, they flew, with Mr Joplin as pilot, in one of the longest raids of the war — to the Tromso Fiord to sink the battleship Tirpitz. Flying from their Woodhall Spa base in Lincolnshire, refuelling at forward bases in Scotland, they over-flew neutral Sweden to

attack the Tirpitz hidden in a fiord at almost 70deg. north, well above the Arctic circle. In all they flew for 13 hours and covered 4800 km that day, 40 years ago on Monday of last week. The team was broken up on December 20, 1944. Mr Hebbard was ill in hospital and the rest of the crew flew in a raid on Pollitz, north of Berlin. The bomber, damaged as fighters and anti-aircraft fire took their toll, struggled back to England but crashed. The man standing in for Mr Hebbard was killed. Messrs Fish and Hebbard said they saw out the war as bomber crew, but in separate planes. Mr Fish went back to university and is working as a civil engineer while Mr Hebbard returned to Mosgiel to run a footwear shop. Squadron 617 still exists, Mr Fish said. It now flies supersonic Tornadoes.