R.N.Z.A.F, CATALINA SQUADRON’S ONE MERCY FLIGHT A MONTH

Wanganui Chronicle, 19 December 1950, Page 4

R.N.Z.A.F, CATALINA SQUADRON’S ONE MERCY FLIGHT A MONTH

WELLINGTON, Last Night (PA)— Since January this year the RNZAF’e No. 5 Catalina flying-boat squadron, based en Fiji, has made an average ot one mercy flight a month. A summary of the squadron's 13 flights was released by RNZAF headquarters, Wellington, today.

The details show that the members of the crew of the Catalina which was lost last week in a take-off accident at Upolu Island, had taken part in several of the mercy flights. On two occasions, one in January and the other in July, the aircraft were piloted by one of the victims of last week’s accident, Pilot 3 C. S. Grey, of Wellington. In July he made a flight of more than 4600 miles which saved the life of a woman on Penrhyn Island, in the extreme north of the Cook Group. The Catalina carried three members of the ttaff of the Colonial War Memorial Hospital, Suva, who undertook an emergency operation at Penrhyn. Another member of the crew on that flight was Signaller H. E. R. Elliott, of Culverden, who also lost his life in the Upolu accident. Other flights mentioned in the summary include one from Suva to Lakemba to drop urgently needed medical supplies, and the recent flight from Hobsonville to the Chathams to bring back a patient with a serious eye injury.