GALLANT AIRMEN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 114, 18 May 1942, Page 4

GALLANT AIRMEN

TOO COLLEGIATE SCHOOL OLD BOYS Two old boys of the Wanganui Collegiate School who have been in the news recently are Squadron-Leader E. H. McHardy, D.F.C., and FlyingOfficer John Pattison. Not yet 22, Squadron-Leader McHardy is one of the youngest New Zealand squadron leaders in the Royal Air Force, and has 45 offensive reconnaissance patrols over the Norwegian coast to his credit during his two years with the Coastal Command. He began operations just before Dunkirk. On one of his first flights he was piloting one of four Blenheims, which were escorting two gunboats on Texel, when 10 Messerscnmitts arrived. One was shot down immediately and Squadron-Leader McHardy made a heaa-on-attack against another before finding cloud cover. On one of his many reconnaissance patrols he planted eight bombs on one ship in the Sogne fiord. The Blenheim, flying down from the top of the fiord, sighted the ship, a 3000-tonner, and Squadron-Leader McHardy ma-chine-gunned it. Then bombs were dropped from mast high. Flying-Officer Pattison was mentioned in the cable news as having spent an hour and a-haif in the English Channel after “one of the most remarkable dogfights of the war.” A Spitfire squadron of 12 New Zealanders was attacked by 52 Focke-Wolf 189’s and the result was a hair-raising battle. Flying-Officer Pattison was badly wounded during the Battle of Britain, when an explosive bullet from a Messerschmitt got him in the left leg and put him in hospital for seven and a-half months. He is now permanently lame but insisted on going back on duty. , r A brother, Brian, is with the 2nd N.Z.E.F. _____