KEY POINTS:
With his mates' shredded bodies floating lifeless around him, all flight sergeant Trevor Ganley of Kaipaki could do was hide under his punctured liferaft as Japanese fighters circled overhead.
It was July 24, 1943 and Mr Ganley's bomber crew, on a routine reconnaissance mission over the Solomon Islands, ran into trouble when they were intercepted by a patrol of Zeros.
Under heavy fire, the Lockheed Hudson Mark III was in flames and three of Mr Ganley's crew were wounded.
The crew made a forced landing in the sea off the coast of Vella Lavella where they abandoned the plane and inflated their life raft.
But the Japanese pilots were relentless and strafed the helpless men in the water.
All of Mr Ganley's crewmates - the oldest of whom was just 36 - were killed.
A wounded Mr Ganley, who had shrapnel and bullet injuries, hid from the planes under the punctured life raft before the Zeros eventually left.
He swam 3km to a nearby uninhabited island where he lived for eight days on coconuts and chocolate he found on a deserted liferaft.
He was eventually found by US Forces and returned to his base 37 days later.
Mr Ganley's story of survival is one of dozens being collected by David Homewood, a Cambridge film maker, who is planning a series of books on the untold history of New Zealand's World War II general reconnaissance squadrons who served in the Pacific.
"I've thought about that story several times and I wouldn't mind turning it into a movie," said Mr Homewood.
The 38-year-old, whose interest in the subject was piqued during a brief stint in the air force in the early 1990s, feared many "recon" stories, like Mr Ganley's, would never be told.
He said reconnaissance missions involving New Zealanders played an important part in shaping the war but little had been written about them.
One involved Lockheed Hudson crews of No4 Squadron flying from Fiji and spotting a Japanese fleet which lead to the Battle of the Coral Sea.
"The Americans ambushed the Japanese invasion fleet simply because they were warned by the reconnaissance provided by our aircraft," said Mr Homewood.
"That battle is credited as the one that saved New Zealand. Had that invasion fleet won its objectives we'd have been in the firing line and next on the list for invasion."
Mr Homewood began his research in 2005 but has found official records of the thousands of servicemen and women who served in the squadrons in NZ, Fiji, the Guadalcanal and other parts of the Pacific were scarce.
With no idea of how many surviving squadron members remain, he is appealing to those who are still alive or their family members to contact him. "I've probably spoken to about 60 people already and collected about 10 personal memoirs and at least 80 photographs from people living in places all over the country," he said.
"That's with a lot of searching, trying to match names from war records and phone books ... there are a lot of dead ends."
To contact David Homewood email davedaasnz@hotmail.com or phone (07) 823-0130.
