It was toward the end of WW2 when Sean O’Neill’s father’s plane was shot down while attacking a kamikaze airbase, and he became a prisoner of war.
Today, his father’s formal jacket brings back the stories Sean has heard over the years – from the crash and being paraded through a village, to confinement in a one-metre-square box.
The jacket and a tiny caterpillar badge that was given to people whose lives were saved by their caterpillar-silk parachute will be part of an Anzac Day display for residents at Arvida Waimea Plains retirement village.
Burn O’Neill was just 18 years old when he enlisted in WW2 and went on to fly Fireflies and Hurricanes. From the aircraft carrier HMS Indefatigable, off the coast of Japan, he set out to attack a kamikaze airbase carrying out suicide attacks on the vessel.
When his own plane was hit in the engine, he had the speed to gain enough height to bail out with his navigator and long-time mate.
“They had rehearsed being shot down in that sort of plane, because a lot of those who ejected were killed by the plane, so, they had practised popping out the bottom.”
On the ground, the pair were paraded through the local village, beaten and taken to the local police station where they were each held in boxes, which Sean says must have been particularly hard on the 6’7” navigator.
Fortunately, it was near the end of the war, and the pair were rescued as Japan surrendered. Both Burn and his navigator returned home after the war, living into their 80s and 90s respectively and remaining friends throughout their lives.
Sean says they were the lucky ones who survived the war, when so many of their pilot buddies did not. Despite the losses from past wars, he says, we continue to head down that path.
“We haven’t learnt much from wars; it’s very sad. Our species doesn’t learn.”
A dawn service will be held for the public outside the clubrooms on Anzac Day to remember and honour those who have served in war. Music begins at 5.45am, with the service starting at 6am, and senior Waimea College students taking part.
