OFFICERS OF AIR FORCE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19379, 17 July 1937, Page 14

OFFICERS OF AIR FORCE

TWO FROM ENGLAND TWO YEARS IN DOMINION (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, this day. The first officers to come to the Dominion under arrangements made by the Government for an exchange of officers of the Royal New Zealand Air Force with Royal Air Force officers, arrived from England by the Arawa yesterday. They are FlightLieutenant Q. M. Grundy, who is a specialist signals officer/and FlightLieutenant L. Crocker; a specialist engineer. Both will be attached to the Royal New Zealand Air Force for a term of two years. __ The New Zealand officers sent to England under agreement between the two Governments .were SquadronLeader Buckley, officer commanding the Royal New Zealand Air Force base at Hobsonville, and Flying Officer Duffey, who was stationed at Wigram aerodrome.

In order to overcome the difficulty of providing the necessary specialist officers the Royal Air Force agreed to send in exchange a specialist signals officer.

Flight-Lieutenant Grundy, who joined the Royal Air Force'in 1926, has served with fighter squadrons since then, and was attached to the fleet air arm for three years. Recently he has been serving with one of the squadrons concerned with the defence of London.

Flight-Lieutenant Crocker, who has been in the Royal Air Force since 1927, has < served in the flying-boat squadrons’and was once stationed at Singapore. He was one of the crew of the super-marine Southampton flying boat that made a flight from Singapore to Sydney some time ago. The two officers were met on arrival by Squadron-Leader Nevill, air staff and intelligence officer at Air headquarters, Wellington, and Flight-Lieu-tenant Lester, officer commanding the Hobsonville air base. They will spend a few days at Hobsonville base and will then proceed to Wellington, where they will probably be attached to air headquarters staff.