FINE RECORD

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20823, 30 June 1942, Page 3

FINE RECORD

YOUNG NEW ZEALANDER SQUADRON LEADER AT 22 LONDON, May 15. Forty-five offensive reconnaissance patrols over the Norwegian coast, between Namos and Christiensand, have been carried out by SquadronLeader E. H. McHardy, D.F.C., of Waipawa, during two years with the Coastal Command. Not ye.t 22, he is one of the youngest New Zealand squadron-leaders in the Royal Air Force. He has made a number of attacks on enemy shipping, and he has been credited with one and ahalf German aircraft definitely destroyed. He also damaged several others. Squadron-Leader McHardy is at present attached to a Royal Canadian Air Force Squadron operating Blenheims in the North of Scotland. In the December raid against Vaagso, when the Royal Air Force, the Royal Navy, and the Commandos combined to destroy an oil refinery being used to supply Germany, the young New Zealander stood on the deck of a cruiser directing Blenheims and Beaufighters by radio telephone. Squadron-Leader McHardy began his operations just before Dunkirk. On one of his first flights he was piloting one of four Blenheims, which were escorting two gunboats off Texel, when 10 Messerschmitts arrived. One was shot down immediately, and McHardy made a head-on attack against another. Three days later he was escorting a ship off the Belgian coast when a Heinkel attacked. Fire from McHardy’s and a second Blenheim sent it down into .the sea; then three Messerschmitts 110 and one Me. 109 arrived. McHardy accounted for a Me. 110, making his score one and ahalf for the patrol. His flights over the Norwegian coast were of value to him during the Vaagso raid. He had flown over the spot many times, and was able to recognise all the landmarks easily.