A well deserved treat for a veteran

MEMENTO: Wally Hicks presenting Harry with a model Grumman TBF Avenger.A STORY TO TELL: Harry Kelsey signing a copy of his memoirs. PICTURES/SUPPLIED

I recently had the pleasure of visiting Harold Kelsey and wife Betty at their home in Castor Bay, Auckland, to give Harold two model aeroplanes I built for him - a Grumman TBF Avenger and a Short Sunderland flying boat - and to show him another, a B-34 Ventura, all of which have special significance in his life.

Harold Kelsey grew up in the 1920s and '30s at Motukaraka, near Kohukohu, then a thriving settlement with a church, school and hall clustered around a dairy factory. His extended family farmed the area, and his father was also the local builder.

An aircraft enthusiast, modelling aeroplanes was Harold's main hobby as a youngster. He completed the air crew pre-entry course by correspondence, at night, while working as a clerk at the Hokianga Dairy Co office. Upon turning 18 in early 1942, at the height of the Japanese invasion threat, Harold wanted only to enlist and be in the Air Force.

He passed the medical examination on his second attempt, and began his RNZAF service on October 31, 1942, Service No 4213900.

After training at Levin and Waipapakauri he sailed to Canada, with hundreds of other Kiwis, to attend navigation school, graduating on December 10, 1943. Back in New Zealand, he was assigned to No 31 Dive Bomber Squadron at Gisborne and became navigator/air gunner for pilot Frank (later Sir Frank) Holmes, along with wireless operator/turret gunner Arch Alexander.

These three were to have colourful careers, flying Grumman Avengers from Piva airstrip, at the southern end of Bougainville, initially under daily attack from nearby Japanese.

As early replacements for No 30 Squadron crew, Harold, Frank and Arch became part of that squadron's tour.

Among numerous bombing missions over Rabaul, in occupied New Britain, Harold vividly remembers one in which an anti-aircraft shell exploded inside his compartment while he was crouched over the machine gun. His parachute took the brunt of the shrapnel, catching fire in the process, the largest surviving piece of silk being about the size of a neck scarf. Harold credits the seat-back and that parachute with saving his life.

Harold, Frank and Arch were also one of only two crews to fly what were called 'Potato Hop' missions, spraying a mixture of diesel and aviation fuel on to Japanese vegetable gardens in northern Bougainville. One RNZAF Avenger, NZ2513, which I built in 1:48 scale for him, was fitted with a special tank and spray equipment constructed by the Americans. The forerunner of aerial topdressing, these missions were executed at very low speed from heights of 25 to 50 feet, in the face of machine gun and anti-aircraft fire.

Getting hit spelled certain death.

At the end of No 31 Squadron's tour Harold transferred to No 2 Bomber Reconnaissance Squadron at Gisborne, flying newly arrived twin-engined PV-1 and B-34 Venturas. On one navigation exercise he 'buzzed' his home town of Motukaraka at low altitude.

The model I showed Harold was a B-34 Ventura NZ4602, OP-O, which it transpired, from his log-book, he actually flew in as navigator on one occasion. The code letters OP-O seemed particularly Hokianga-appropriate.

In Fiji in January 1945 Harold was found to have a hernia, requiring surgery in New Zealand. He flew home from Lathaula Bay on RNZAF Short Sunderland NZ4102, 'Tokomaru,' the third of my models and my second gift to Harold, this one built and converted from an old Airfix kit he gave me last November, moulded in 1960 - when I was 4 years old.

Harold was with No 4 BR Squadron at Los Negros, in the Admiralty Islands, when the Japanese surrendered in early September 1945, and arrived home on October 6. He was transferred to Reserve of Air Force on January 14, 1946.

Harold Kelsey went on to a career, first as draughtsman with the Housing Department in Auckland and later as an architect. He married childhood sweetheart Betty Williamson in 1949 and they have three children, nine adult grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.

It is one of the great pleasures of my life to have met Harold and Betty through Harold's younger cousin Stan Bawden, of Motukaraka, and Stan's wife Phyllis.