22 WINGS OVER WAIRARAPA AIR FESTIVAL 2017
Masterton’s Fighter Squadron Wings Over Wairarapa Air Festival 2017 this year pays special tribute to No. 14 Squadron RNZAF with aircraft from throughout the Squadron’s long history on display. But the Squadron’s story starts here at Hood Aerodrome. In the dark days of 1942, after the Japanese conquered Singapore, the RNZAF had to hastily shift its role to home defence. Kiwi ÿghter pilots who had escaped from Singapore were formed into a new squadron, No. 14, and sent to Hood Aerodrome. Equipped with Harvards and P-40 Kittyhawks, the pilots pooled their experiences and worked the new squadron up to operational standard. Peter Norman, then a teenager who later joined the RNZAF himself, wrote an informal history of the squadron in Masterton: ‘With 14 Squadron at Masterton’s Hood Aerodrome’. The aircraft were dispersed around the airÿeld and
often had to be towed along the local roads. The present aero clubroom was used as a ° ight ofÿce, including rooms for the Commanding Ofÿcer, ° ight commanders and pilots, and where parachutes and ° ying gear would be ready for use. “I remember one Sunday tennis party when there was a sudden alarm and all the pilots rushed to the airÿeld and into the air to investigate a ° eet of unknown ships. We were told later, in conÿdence, that the ° eet was
bringing American Marines to Wellington.” There was one death during the ten months the squadron trained at Masterton. Twelve days after he arrived in November, 1942, 20 yearold Sgt/Pilot Arthur Law’s Kittyhawk entered a dive at 2400 metres when breaking away from a dummy attack. Failing to recover, the airplane crashed near Greytown. The Squadron left Masterton in February 1943. Security was tight in wartime but people soon learned the Squadron was on the front line in the Solomons. One of the pilots, Masterton farmer Geoff Fisken, named his aircraft ‘Wairarapa Wildcat’. By the War’s end he was the Commonwealth’s leading ace in the Paciÿc.