Tangaroa G33K, history and family history: Norman Noel Williams in the New Zealand Air Force during World War 2

Norman Noel Williams at Wigram

I don’t have nearly enough information about Norman’s service record apart from tracing the locations he served and information about the locations. I will provide basic information and there might be others that could fill in the information that I can include at a later date about Norman’s service that I could quite possibly have overlooked.

Norman Noel Williams was born in 1923 and lived in the Whangarei area. On his service record he said he was a Civil servant and had passed the exam. On enlistment he entered the army through 4 Battalion in Wellington in Johnsonville on the 29 of May 1942, aged 22.

He spent around 6 weeks with the territorials before going to the RNZAF on the 9 of July 1942. No idea for the reason for this apart from would have received basic training. He ended up at Wigram a day later on the 10 of July 1942. Some of the training that was listed with his service record was some shooting and throwing three live grenades while in Swanson. Wigram was the air force base in Christchurch New Zealand. Swanson was located in Auckland and was a training area for the air force during World War 2.

His overseas service began with him being sent to Norfolk Island as part of N Force. The occupation while in the Air Force was that of a wireless operator, which would be radio communications. Norman was stationed at Norfolk Island for close to a month from the 27 March in 1943 to 14 April 1943. From April he became part of 14 Squadron. This squadron had been moved to Espiritu Santos in Vanuatu from various areas in the pacific.[1] From June the squadron would end up in Guadalcanal fighting the Japanese. From 26 of May, Norman would be stationed in Vanuatu.

When looking up some of the place names that were in the service record, the location of Espirito Santos sent me to Brazil. That did not seem to be possible for the New Zealand air force to be sending people. Another location was an island called Espiritu Santos which is the main island of Vanuatu. Sounds a lot better for the New Zealand air force to be located. I wasn’t too sure about the spelling at the time. The island was an important base for the United States and shared the airfields with New Zealand.[2]

Norman would be on Espiritu Santos until Christmas Eve of 1943, where he would be transferred to Number 1 island group, which was located on Espiritu Santos until it was relocated in January 1944 to Guadalcanal, which by then the group was responsible for a number of aircraft and eventually a large number of personnel.[3] Norman would be with the group until 15 of April in 1945, where he ended up in the BDRP (Base Depot Reception Pool), but it wasn’t exactly clear where this was located. More research is required and Google isn’t telling me much at all. He was part of this group from15 April to 17 April in the same month. Though after a small gap in time that I cannot work out, he was listed as being back at Espiritu Santos as part of BDTP, which is another term I cant make heads or tails of unless I am not reading the service record properly. He would be there from the 23 of November 1944 until 1 December 1944. From the 2 of December 1944 to 26 September 1945, Norman would be part of the Number 6 squadron (fb), which turns out to be the Flying Boats/ although amongst the slang it could also mean fighter bomber.[4]

Looking at the dates Norman served the gap might have been when he was sent home and came back. The first lot was from 27/03/1943 to 17/04/1944, a period of 1 year and 1 month. The second lot was from the 23/11/1944 to 26/01/1946, a period of 3.3 years. The writer could have gotten confused over the dates further up with trying to follow the service record. It never said if he served on the aircraft, but you would have to assume that he did as he had the important roles as a wireless operator.

He was eligible for the Medals

1939/45 star

Pacific star

Defence medal

War medal 1939/45

NZ war service medal

Sources

Norman Noel Williams WWII service record

RNZAF Slang

https://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/RNZAF%20Slang.htm

No 14 Squadron RNZAF

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._14_Squadron_RNZAF