WELLINGTON PILOT IN AIR FIGHT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 5 October 1936, Page 5

WELLINGTON PILOT IN AIR FIGHT

SEEKER OF THRILLS MR E. N. GRIFFITHS (United Press Association) WELLINGTON* This Day. Well known in aviation' circles as a most 'enterprising pilot, Mr Eric N. Griffiths, a New Zealander who has been wounded in a n t'alr fight with rebel aeroplanes in Spain,- has already packVd much flying adventure into his young life. A son of Mr and Mrs W. Griffiths, of Muritai road, Eastbourne, and an old boy of Wellington College, he learned to fly with the Wairarapa Aero Club about five or six years ago. Flight Lieutenant J. M. Buckeridge was his instructor. F or a time he accompanied the late Squadron Leader M. C. McGregor and the late “Scotty” Fraser in a barnstorming j tour of the Dominion and then-left for China; where he spent eight months in the service of various war lords and in ferrying machines from Shanghai to their headquarters. After that he returned to New Zealand and acquired a commercial pilot’s license. He joined the second Byrd Antarctic Expedition in 1933. , i >;

Sir MacPhcrson Robertson’s announcement of the London-Melbourne air race brought him back to New Zealand, however, and for some time he was engaged in an endeavour to raise finance for an entry in the race. In this he was unsuccessful, and about 18 months ago left for England, without any fixed plans. There he found some work in aviation. and was employed for some time by Imperial Airways, Ltd. Then he was injured in a crash of a private machine in France. The last news his parents had of his whereabouts, until a cablegram in Saturday morning’s “Dominion” announced his progress toward recovery in Madrid hospital, was that he had entered the British Army and was in the Rifle Brigade. He had his twenty-first birthday in the Antarctic and his twenty-third in Spain.