A NEW ZEALAND SPITFIRE UNIT

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 137, 6 March 1941, Page 6

A NEW ZEALAND SPITFIRE UNIT

There can be no doubt that, as the Minister of Defence has stated, The people of New Zealand will follow the activities of the first New Zealand fighter squadron with keen interest. They ..have heard something—but by no means enough—about the bomber squadron that is manned by men from the Dominion, and are anxious to learn of the doings of these young men to whom “so many owe so much.” The New Zealand airmen in the new fighter squadron will use Spitfires, a type of aircraft that has already proved its worth; and from now on people, when they read of Spitfires levying, toll of the enemy, will wonder if they were manned by New Zealanders. The wonderful efficiency of these machines compels admiration. They are a triumph of mechanical skill and engineering, although men who fly other craft may claim that their particular machines are unexcelled, and it must give added confidence to those who go out to battle in the air to know that technically their equipment is of the very best. But nothing can displace, jn the minds of people, the admiration felt for the personnel of the Air Force. Wonderful as the machines may be, the cool courage, daring and endurance of the men who control them will ever take first place. The man is greater than the machine. The qualities of lightning calculation—for, as one aviator put .it, “one must think in split seconds”—of a courage that finds no inspiration in the proximity of brave men but must fight alone, of a judgment that must be swift and accurate—for there can be no recalling mistakes—outweigh anything that man has ever made.By day or night, and with almost incredible speed, the test may come, the moment of combat somewhere in the trackless air. And realization of that fact will always ensure that the record of the New Zealand air squadrons will be followed with exceptional interest. They will possess something that will mark them out, in that they will be “our” New Zealand units. The good wishes that will go out to every member of the fighter squadron, as to those who have done such great work with the bombers, will be based on a confidence that though small units in the mighty air defences of an Empire they will prove worthy of the high traditions of the service and reflect credit on the land from which they come.