BOMBING WEEK - Royal New Zealand Air Force

OH 06-0087-07
HERO’S
FAMILY GET THEIR VC
The Victoria Cross (VC), awarded to one of the
RNZAF’s most famous airmen, has been returned
to his family.
SGT James Allen Ward won the VC in 1941
after a daring act of bravery during a bombing
raid on Munster.
Chief of Air Force, AVM John Hamilton
presented the VC, a log book and other
material to SGT Ward’s great nephew, Mr
Micheal Mayne, at a ceremony at RNZAF Base
Ohakea on Friday 3 March.
The precious medal had been in the care of the
RNZAF since 1988 and was kept in a vault for
some time since then. The RNZAF was given the
VC after the death of SGT Ward’s brother, Harold
Ward. His Will detailed the RNZAF to take care
of the medal until SGT Ward’s great nephew Mr
Mayne turned 21 – and that milestone birthday
happened this year.
SGT Ward was born in Wanganui on 14 June
1919 and enlisted in the RNZAF on 2 July 1940. A
year later he left for the UK, where he was posted
to active service with 75 NZ Squadron, RAF.
www.airforce.mil.nz
www.airforce.mil.nz
CAF, AVM John Hamilton hands over the VC.
AFN69, APRIL 06
HERO: SGT James Allen Ward.
He’d been away for only a few months, when
on the 7/8 July the Wellington bomber he’d been
fl ying during an attack on Munster was attacked
by an Me 110 over the Zuider Zee.
The rear-gunner was wounded, much damage
done, the starboard wing set ablaze. The crew
were preparing to abandon the aircraft when
Ward volunteered to go out on the wing and try
to smother the fl ames with a cockpit cover, which
had served in the plane as a cushion. Attached
to a rope and with the help of the navigator, he
climbed through the narrow astro-hatch - far from
easy in fl ying gear, even on the ground - put on
his parachute, kicked holes in the Wellington’s
covering fabric to get foot and hand-holds on the
geodetic lattices, and descended three foot to the
wing. He then worked his way along to behind
the engine, and, despite the fi erce slipstream
from the propeller, managed while lying down to
smother the fi re. Isolated from the leaking petrol
pipe, this later burnt itself out. Ward, exhausted,
regained the astro-hatch with great diffi culty:
‘the hardest of the lot,’ he wrote, ‘was getting
my right leg in. In the end the navigator reached
out and pulled it in.’ Despite all the damage, the
crew got home to a safe landing.
While SGT Ward won the VC for that courageous
feat, he was never to be presented with
the medal. He died ten weeks later and is buried
in Germany.
Mr Mayne said that receiving the VC on behalf
of his great uncle was quite overwhelming.
‘He was only a year older than me but I can’t
image myself crawling out on a wing the way
he did. Mrs Lesley McGrath, SGT Ward’s great
niece, says the Kiwi hero was, like many of his
countrymen, a ‘very reserved person. The family
received a letter from him after the life-saving
incident in which he modestly described it as “a
bit of a do”.’
AVM Hamilton described the heroic act as
‘a tremendously gutsy thing for a 22 year old.
His action epitomises the standards the RNZAF
would like to attain.’
The VC is currently on display at the Auckland
War Museum.
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