P/O Harry Allman Smith
Royal New Zealand Air Force 108 Squadron
from:New Plymouth, New Zealand
Harry Allman Smith, Pilot Officer 108 Squadron, 2nd July 1942 – 26th November 1942
My father Harry Smith joined the New Zealand Air Force in May 1941. He arrived in England from New Zealand via Canada on Christmas Eve 1941 and after various training courses involving spells at Honnington, South Cerney and Harwell/Mount Farm disembarked in the Middle East on 3rd June 1942 to join 108 Squadron. He served with the squadron as second pilot, flying Wellington 1c bombers from their desert airfield, based at Kilo 40, Kabrit, often at night. His targets were based around Tobruk, including the airfield, port and shipping, battlefields and transport movements in the area. His log book of course mostly just records times and dates and targets as well as statistics such as flying hours although he did occasionally note instances of “Caught in searchlight” “ Heavy flak” and on his 39th ops “Close call”. First pilots he flew with included Sgt Brookes, Ft Sgt Murray but mostly P/O Gunn. His last operational flight was a bombing raid on Heraklion airfield on Crete on November 23rd 1942, which was his 40th op. Also recorded were the aborted ops, usually due to an aircraft problem such as “port engine u/s” “dynamo u/s”, when the bomb load would be jettisoned on the way back to base. His last two flights (non ops) with 108 Squadron recorded in his Flying Log were in late November on 26th and 29th with Flight Sgt Murray as 1st Pilot, the laconic comments in the log book being respectively “Bags of fun” and “Cooks Tour”. Overall flying hours with 108 Squadron totalled 532.35 hrs. Of these Day Ops hour total was 26.55 hrs and Night Ops 213.35 hrs (He did 3 further bombing ops with 37 Squadron before transfer to 117 Squadron)
