A 75-year-old piece of aviation history is due to land at Kaitaia airport next month, for a two-day visit over the weekend of March 30-31. And no one is looking forward to it more than Kaitaia man Paul Muller, thanks in part to the yarns he heard as a child from a friend's father.
"I spent hours and hours hanging out with my best friend Pine Takarangi when we were growing up on a farm south of Patea," he said.
"His dad, Mick, would tell us tales of when he was a navigator/radio operator assigned to the RNZAF in a PBY Catalina during World War II, patrolling the Pacific, looking for enemy subs, downed airmen, lost seamen and signs of Japanese activity.
"He told me about the Pommie crew member whose job it was, after returning to base, to lasso the mooring and secure the lumbering flying boat. Only trouble was he couldn't swim, and was dead scared of the water, while Mick, who had been raised on the banks of the Whanganui River, swam like a fish. So he volunteered to secure the plane to the mooring for him.
"On one occasion the skipper yelled at him to hook up to a particular buoy. Mick thought they were going a bit fast, but it wasn't his place to question orders, so, with consummate skill, he threw the rope and captured the buoy.