Ep.128: Coastal Command Chapter 5 – Kiwi Crews

Welcome once again to our Coastal Command series. This is Chapter 5 – Kiwi Crews.

In this chapter we look at the role and involvement of aircrews from New Zealand in RAF Coastal Command. Dave Homewood from the Wings Over New Zealand podcast interviews Dave Duxbury and Don Wilkie in this episode and joins us to co-host the chapter.

489 NZ Squadron Crew (c) Don Wilkie – Back Row Left to Right: F/O Jolly, F/O Parkin, S/L Reynolds, F/O Nugent, W/O Davidson, W/C Hammond, F/O Southernwood, F/O Ward
Front Row Left to Right: W/O Graham, F/S Priest, F/O Marsh, F/O Gray. April 1945 Air Force Museum of NZ

David Duxbury is well known in aviation circles as a prolific historian and researcher, and an author of several books including Aircraft of the Royal New Zealand Air Force. He volunteers several days a week at the Air Force Museum of New Zealand, working in their archives as a researcher.

He is considered a walking-talking encyclopedia of RNZAF history, and what he does not know, he researches in depth.

Don Wilkie is an artist. He has worked in publishing and had his own graphic design company, but he began painting seriously in 2012. He has a love of aviation history and has specialised in painting scenes of RNZAF history, particularly from WWII. It was when he was researching for some paintings of No. 489 Squadron Beaufighters he realised that there was so little published history available on that New Zealand squadron that served in RAF Coastal Command.

Don Wilkie – Copyright www.artistdonwilkie.co.nz

So, he set about researching and writing his own book, which is close to being published. Along the way his research has expanded his knowledge of what the men of No. 489 (NZ) Squadron accomplished during WWII.

Recorded September – November 2021

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