Skip to main content

In Honour

Neville Sandiford

Neville Sandiford's short but spectacular war

Neville Sandiford has few memories of the incident that ended his war.

I was keen, silly enough and young enough to be keen.

An aerial gunner with the Royal New Zealand Air Force, he was on one of his final training flights in 1945, when the Wellington Bomber he was a crew member of crashed.

The plane hit the ground and cart-wheeled into several pieces.

“I was told later that I was the only one left inside the plane ... All of the others were scattered about the paddock. The pilot and co-pilot were still strapped into their chairs. The navigator was killed, and I never heard of nor saw any of the others again.”

Neville Sandiford (centre), 97, served as a gunner in WWII. Training in a Wellington bomber in England, in 1945, he suffered a serious head injury when his plane caught fire and crashed. PHOTO: SUPPLIED

It would be 90 minutes before rescuers cut him out, and he was taken to hospital unconscious.

“My skull was cracked and my eye badly damaged.”

It was not until he was visited in Oxford Hospital, where he spent two weeks, and was visited by a priest that he would get any idea of what happened.

One of the engines in the twin engine bomber had caught fire and the inexperienced pilot had not been able to keep the plane even as he attempted to land.

“The people who examined the accident said it was pilot error.”

The war ended whilst he was in hospital and Sandiford was sent home.

Originally from Taranaki, Sandiford left school at 14 to work on a dairy farm.

When the war broke out, he was still a young man and the conflict seemed a far off event of little consequence.

That would change, however, in 1941 when his oldest brother lance corporal George Murray Sandiford was killed in action in Greece.

“It was very traumatic. I did not realise there was a war on until then. Everything had gone on much the same for me. I had not taken much notice of the war.”

Neville Sandiford, second from left, with fellow trainees in World War II. PHOTO SUPPLIED

In December 1942, aged 18, he was called up for service.

After initially serving in the army, he transferred to the air force and was sent to Canada to train.

He sailed on the New Amsterdam, with the boredom of the long voyage only broken by the presence of German prisoners they had to guard.

Neveille Sandiford served in a twin engine Wellington bomber. PHOTO: SUPPLIED

“It was very traumatic. I did not realise there was a war on until then. Everything had gone on much the same for me. I had not taken much notice of the war.”

Initially, he trained to be a wireless operator but with the war coming to an end and keen to see some action, he volunteered to become a gunner, as the training was shorter.

“I was keen, silly enough and young enough to be keen.”

Looking back at his service, he is philosophical about his time overseas and has no regrets.

“I enjoyed my time in England, apart from the crash, but was happy to get home. I must say that overall I had a wonderful trip free of charge at the Government’s expense, and I am still alive and living a wonderful life.”

After the war he worked for the Railways for many years before buying a Four Square store in Miramar. He married Joan Evelyn Clark in 1948, and they had three children, Neville John, Maria and Cheryl.

These days Neville Sandiford, no 4215905, RNZAF, lives independently in the Metlifecare village in Paraparaumu.

Back to top