NZ Centenarian's Wartime Memories

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FD2
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NZ Centenarian's Wartime Memories

#1 Post by FD2 » Fri Dec 31, 2021 9:19 pm

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/127412 ... arian-club

Well written account in general. Derek was one of 760 Kiwis who graduated as aircrew in the Fleet Air Arm, out of 1200 volunteers.
https://www.mcleodsbooks.co.nz/p/nz-mil ... air-arm--2


Former WWII fighter pilot joins the centenarian club

Martin Van Beynen05:00, Jan 01 2022


STACY SQUIRES
Derek Morton remembers his war years, when as a pilot with the Royal Navy, he attacked the German pocket battleship Tirpitz and then later at the end of the war was rescued by an American submarine after ditching his shot down Corsair.

In the year Derek Morten was born, people were still recovering from the ravages of Spanish influenza.

Adolf Hitler had become leader of the Nazi party and Mahatma Gandhi was beginning a mass movement of civil disobedience in India. In San Francisco the last firehorses were retired.

In New Zealand William Massey was Prime Minister and the first scheduled airmail service took off from Christchurch for Ashburton and Timaru. The first radio programme was broadcast from a small transmitter at the University of Otago and the All Blacks played their first ever test against the Springboks.

Morten, who turned 100 on December 21, 2021, has lived through a lot of history. Reaching the century is no longer regarded as something particularly special in New Zealand even if the Queen still sends her telegrams. It’s believed the country has about 500 centenarians.


But few would arrive at the big number in as good condition as Morten. His faculties are largely intact and he is still mobile, although he admits his hearing is “bloody awful”. He still recalls names and dates with amazing accuracy although admits to struggling with what he did last week.
Derek Morten turned 100 on December 21, 1921. He flew with the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy during WW2.


Longevity doesn’t run in his family. He had polio as a child, has survived a few heart attacks but has outlived his siblings by 20 years.

“I never thought I would get here,” Morten says. “I don’t know [the secret].

He and his wife Pam had four children, with three still alive. The oldest is 75.

Morten was born in Nurse Overton’s nursing home in Sumner, the last of four children to father Richard, a farmer in Yaldhurst, and mother Violet (formerly Bassett).

Derek Morten would end up a big cheese in the meat processing industry, spending a decade as general manager of Canterbury Frozen Meat company, but his war service remains the main talking point of his life.

His first job after school was uninspiring so when war broke out he was keen to go overseas. His father refused to sign his application for the air force but relented for papers for direct entry to the British Navy.

“I didn’t tell him that it was the Fleet Air Arm that I was interested in,” he says.

After testing, he was accepted for Fleet Air Arm training which began in February 1942 in Auckland.

“It was the first time I had been north of Wellington so it was all excitement.”


He and his draft of 20 prospective pilots sailed for Britain on the troop ship Capetown Castle. His brother Dick was already in the navy and brother Tom, who fought in Greece, Crete, North Africa and Italy, was in the army. Tom would be promoted to Brigadier and be awarded the Distinguished Service Order and Commander of the most Excellent Order of the British Empire for his five years of military service.

After a course at St Vincent air base in Gosport in South England, Morten’s draft embarked on the Queen Mary for more training in the United States at the US naval air base at Grosse Ile, Michigan, arriving in December 1942 to celebrate his 21st birthday.
Derek Morten, fourth from top left, was rescued by a submarine off the coast of Japan in 1945. The submarine’s officers insisted he pose with them for a photograph. He says the officers were all very tall.


“After that training was constant, one week flying in the morning and study in the afternoons.”

Training continued in Miami and in Maine, where he had his first flight in the US-built Corsair fighter, designed for landing on aircraft carriers. He became a member of the newly formed 1841 Corsair squadron comprised of British, Canadian and New Zealand pilots. Two of the seven Kiwis would be killed in combat, two badly injured, and three, including Morten, would return home physically unscathed. Two pilots in the squadron were killed during training.

The squadron consisting of 18 Corsairs was finally posted to active service on the Royal Navy’s HMS Formidable in June 1944. Morten’s first combat flight was in July accompanying bombers targeting the German battleship Tirpitz, hiding out in the fjords of northern Norway. He was flight leader on his first operation. The well armed battleship the British were determined to neutralise to remove the threat it posed to Allied Arctic convoys, survived, and Morten’s squadron flew protection for more bombing raids in August.

“During one of those raids, I was leading my flight at low level and I thought we were really low when a Dutch Hellcat squadron came out underneath us. That gave me the biggest fright of the war.”



On one raid his close friend Clive Woodward was shot down in flames and killed. Morten earned a Distinguished Service Order for gallantry and devotion to duty for his part in the operation.

Aircraft from his squadron were kept constantly in the air above the British fleet at Scapa Flow, Orkney Islands, on anti-submarine patrols.

The Formidable then headed for Australia to join the Pacific Fleet. On a shore leave in Sydney, he met Pam who was to become his wife.

On May 4, 1945, as the Formidable neared Manus Island, north of Papua New Guinea, a kamikaze bomber hit the ship while Morten was in the air chasing “some mythical” Japanese intruder. Repairs were quickly made, and he landed on the ship about four hours later. The suicide bombing killed eight and wounded 47.

The ship was hit by another kamikaze five days later with one fatality but little damage. The Formidable then joined the Americans for operations against the Japanese mainland.

“These operations consisted mainly of escorting Avengers (bombers), ground and railway strafing and attacks on smallish sized shipping in the inland area. I never actually fought against any aircraft in the air but did have the odd shoot up on the ground.”
A Corsair follows a Mustang at the Wanaka Air Show.


On a routine operation on August 10 north of Tokyo, his Corsair was hit by anti-aircraft fire.

“I had petrol slopping around in the bottom of the cockpit, and it was obvious I couldn’t stay in the air for long. I headed out to sea and ditched the plane. It never occurred to me until later that if the engine backfired there could easily have been an explosion.”

A US submarine, USS Peto, surfaced alongside his rubber dinghy about five hours later and took him aboard.

“I was on there for 12 days and was treated royally,” he says.


The Japanese operations were dangerous and a number of the Corsair pilots were killed through accidents or being shot down.

“It just happened. You accepted it, it was never going to be me. You got used to having breakfast with someone who wasn’t there at lunchtime. People used to get a bit strung up but it wasn’t really a problem. Not with our lot.”

The landings on the aircraft carriers were the most dangerous day-to-day part of the war for the pilots, he says. He chalked up 99 landings during his service.

After the war Morten married Pam in Sydney and went back to working for CFM. Earmarked for management, he spent four years as a labourer at various plants learning the business.

He became the manager of the Belfast freezing works in 1950 and spent the next 10 years in charge.

“Those were the happiest years of my working life.”

After a stint overseas, he was appointed general manager of CFM on a salary of $15,000, in 1972.

He survived a tumultuous time in the meat processing industry which went through mergers, takeovers and many export challenges. He retired from CFM in about 1982 aged 60 and did private consulting directorships and charity work.

He lives in the Park Lane Retirement Village in Addington.

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