News

With sadness we record the passing of veteran Lewis (Lew) Day DFC aged one hundred.

Day joined the RNZAF in 1942 for initial pilot training at Harewood, Christchurch, going on to complete his flying course in Manitoba, Canada and also specialist navigational training from Prince Edward Island as part of the EATS.

Arriving in the UK he was posted to Coastal Command in 1944, joining a new crew on Short Sunderland flying boats as a second pilot. They flew patrols over the Atlantic from Scotland before the crew started to get ferrying jobs.

The first was taking a new Sunderland down to Mombasa in East Africa. The next was taking a new Sunderland Mk. V to Rangoon in Burma (Myanmar), and when his captain became ill, Lew stayed on in Rangoon and joined a new crew with No. 230 Squadron RAF. He was in Singapore when Japan surrendered.

After the war, Day returned to New Zealand but later rejoined the RAF, who were recruiting experienced crew. Here he flew Wellingtons and Lancasters in order to gain the required experience as a four-engine captain, before being posted to No. 209 Squadron, based in Singapore.

During a two-year posting, Day was actively involved in both the Malayan Emergency and the Korean War. He flew Sunderlands as land bombers in Malaya, and as convoy escorts and weather ships in Korea, earning the DFC, flying thirty-six ops. After Korea he went on to become a RAF flying instructor, serving with the RAF until 1961.

On returning to NZ, Day took up aero club instructing and charter piloting. He became the chief flying instructor at Southern Districts Aero Club, in Gore (where he taught his wife Doreen to fly), before moving north to become an instructor at Auckland Aero Club.

Day later joined Airwork, who were contracted to fly New Zealand Forest Products staff to remote sites such as Kawerau and Kinleith. He also flew search and rescue flights in support of Westpac’s rescue helicopters. When he retired from flying in 2000 he had logged more than 20,000 flying hours. For his services to aviation, he became a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) in 1996.

Last year Day took to the skies for the final time, with a special flight in a Tiger Moth at Hastings aerodrome to celebrate his 100^th birthday. It was all smiles as he took to the skies again with pilot Bill Lamb at the controls to enjoy half an hour of flying over Hawke’s Bay in perfect flying conditions, complete with loops, barrel rolls and a touch and go.

Married to Doreen for more than 75 years, Lew will be sadly missed. NZBCA extends our condolences to all his family.