PACIFIC FERRY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 149, 26 June 1945, Page 5

PACIFIC FERRY

N. 2. AIRMEN TO TRAIN (R.N.Z.A.F. Official News Service.) OTTAWA, June 23. Another step in the establishment of the Pacific ferry service was taken this morning with the arrival at Dorval of the first New Zealand crew to be trained to fly on the; New Zealand ferry service. The crew is to commence a conversion course to Liberators, and on completion will operate between San Diego a~\id New Zealand. The New Zealanders were welcomed by the New Zealand High Commissioner, Mr. Wilson, and Group Captain T. W. White, chief liaison officer with the New Zealand Air Mission, as well as by Canadian officers. The captain of the crew is Squadron Leader A. J. Bradshaw, of Christchurch, who was interested in commercial aviation before the war. Since joining the R.N.Z.A.F. he has seen extensive service in the Pacific, both with a bomber reconnaissance squadron and in flying transport aircraft. Other members of the crew are Flight Lieutenant C. D. Milne, North Canterbury (co-pilot), Flying Officer L. A. R. Hill, Havelock North (navigator), Flying Officer C. B. G. Knight, Nelson (wireless operator), Warrant Officer A. C. Hilliam. Auckland (flight engineer), and Corporal D. Peterson, Auckland (flight clerk). LINER'S FURNISHINGS SYDNEY, June 25. Furnishings valued at many thousands of pounds which were taken frqm the 81,000-ton liner, Queen Mary, in Sydney, when she arrived here in April, 1940, to become a troopship, are now awaiting shipment back to Britain. The Queen Mary is being fitted out for the North Atlantic passenger service and the furnishings will soon be needed. When the liner arrived at Sydney on her first visit, she had been only partially stripped of her pre-war finery, and while at anchor here much more was removed. De luxe suites were torn to pieces and cabins that had accommodated one or two people were fitted with bunks for six or eight Australian soldiers.