R.N.Z.A.F. TRANSPORT

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 October 1945, Page 3

R.N.Z.A.F. TRANSPORT

EVACUATION FROM SINGAPORE. ' AUCKLAND, October 23. The last of the R.N.Z.A.F. Douglas Dakota transport aircraft used to evacuate released internees and prisoners of war from Singapore arrived at Auckland to-day. This was the twelfth flight made to New Zealand since the first plane reached Malaya on September 12 and in . the intervening period of about six weeks 158 former prisoners of the Japanese have been flown safely back to their families. R.N.Z.A.F. personnel who were sent to Singapore to organise the evacuation of internees and prisoners have all been withdrawn. However, an Army contact team is still in Ma- i laya to continue such uncompleted tasks as the registration of graves and the listing of the dead. This team is working in Malaya, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Burma, Siam, and IndoChina. The only New Zealand internees or prisoners known to be left in the area from which the R.N.Z.A.F. drew its passengers for flights to New Zealand are a very few who desire to stay there for private reasons. They will be brought back by sea when they wish to come. By evacuating 158 New Zealanders or husbands of New Zealanders, the R.N.Z.A.F. has completed a task the merit of which, cannot be measured by the number- of persons rescued. The magnitude of the jolo is only oartly indicated by the fact that it has involved about 130,000 miles of air travel, and by the obvious difficulties entailed in finding the internees and prisoners, who were scattered among a number of camps in a wide area. In addition to flights between New Zealand and Singapore, the R.N.Z.A.F. made one trip to Java and one to Bangkok to bring back to Singapore any New Zealanders who had been imprisoned there. At Singapore the R.N.Z.A.F. used a house belonging to a Chinese millionaire, constituting it as “New Zealand House.” it provided quarters and a mess, not only for Air Force personnel, but also for released internees and prisoners. As many of these as possible were .accommodated there, and all received their meals in its mess, as many as 80 being fed in one day on rations which had been taken from New Zealand and on food obtained locally. Before it withdrew from Singapore the R.N.Z.A.F. group handed over to recognised organisations the remainder of its stores of food, clothing and medical supplies. These will be used for the benefit of released prisoners of other nations who have not yet been evacuated. The 12 passenger flights to New Zealand were accomplished without accident. ' The only mishaps recorded during rescue operations were to the first two aircraft which.were sent from New Zealand. While they were on the landing field at Morotai, m the Moluccas, during the flight to Singapore they were both hit by an American aircraft which gpt out oi control while it was being landed. From these two damaged Dakotas one machine has now been made airworthy and will be flown back to New Zealand at the first opportunity. The wreckage of the second aeroplane will be stripped cf all remaining spare parts which can be salvaged. -