WAR CAREER

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21184, 6 August 1940, Page 7

WAR CAREER

SQUADRON-LEADER COLLETT DEATH IN OPERATIONS PART IN NOTABLE RAIDS (By Telegraph.—Special to Times) GISBORNE, Monday Advice of the death of their son, Squadron-Leader Wilfred Ira Collett, in operations with the Royal Air Force, has been received by Mr and Mrs E. A. Collett, Whittaker Street, Gisborne. Squadron-Leader Collett went to the United Kingdom in June, 1934, and was commissioned as a pilotofficer. Subsequently he saw four years’ service in Egypt and the Middle East and he was stationed in Egypt when he received furlough which enabled him to return to New Zealand three years ago. During that furlough he was married to Doreen, third daughter of Mr and Mrs A. J. Nicol, of Gisborne, his wife accompanying him on his return to Egypt. A year later he was transferred to a depot in the United Kingdom and in the months prior to the outbreak of war he was training with a number of other New Zealand officers chosen to fly the fleet of Wellington bombers to New Zealand. Squadron-Leader Collett was one of the New Zealand pilots who took part in the initial raid on Kiel Canal and Wilhelmshaven, later in an air battle near Heligoland, and in lengthy and arduous bombing and reconnaissance work along the coastline of Norway. He was in charge of a bombing raid, in which LeadingAircraftsman J. Langridge, another Gisborne member of the Royal Air Force, lost his life two months ago.

RECOVERY OF PILOT

(By Telegraph.—Press Association) WELLINGTON. Monday It is announced that Pilot-Officer Alan Carthew Rowe, reported seriously injured in June, has been removed from the seriously ill list. His father is the Rev. W. Rowe, of Nel-