Anzac Day: World War II

Michael Mayne with the Victoria Cross and other medals awarded to his great-great-uncle Jimmy Ward. Photo / Brett Phibbs

With flames spreading rapidly though his bomber aircraft, 22-year-old Sergeant Jimmy Ward tied a rope around his waist and crawled out on to the wing to douse the flames.

He was serving during World War II with 75 (NZ) Squadron, which was based at RAF Feltwell, in Norfolk, southeast England.

He died in a separate incident 10 weeks after the heroic actions for which he received a Victoria Cross.

Now, 70 years after his death, a community centre will be named after the Wanganui-born airman at his former base.

Kevin King, an RAF member in the 1960s, helped to form the Friends of 75 (NZ) Squadron Association, a support group for surviving members and their families. He has shared Sergeant Ward's heroic tale for Anzac Day.

On July 7, 1941, Sergeant Ward's Vickers Wellington aircraft, in which he was the co-pilot, had just been attacked by a German night-fighter over the Zuiderzee in the Netherlands after a raid on Munster.

The attack opened a fuel tank on the starboard wing, causing a fire in the engine at more than 13,000ft.

Mr King said Sergeant Ward tied a rope from the emergency dinghy around his waist and left the other end of it in the hands of two of the other five crewmen.

"He crawled through the narrow astro-hatch, crawled on to the wing and kicked holes in the aircraft's fabric to give himself hand- and foot-holes," Mr King said.

Sergeant Ward then lay down and reached around the wing, over to the engine and smothered the flames with a canvas pillow cover.

Although the fuel continued leaking, with the fire out the plane was safe enough to make an emergency landing at Newmarket, north of London.

The navigator helped him to crawl back into the plane.

Soon after, Sergeant Ward was summoned to Downing St, where Prime Minister Winston Churchill reportedly told the reluctant hero: "You must feel very humble and awkward in my presence?" He managed to say, "Yes, sir," to which Churchill replied: "Then you can imagine how humble and awkward I feel in yours."

Sergeant Ward and two others died when their bomber was hit by flak and caught fire over Hamburg. He was buried at the Ohlsdorf Cemetery in the city.

The VC was presented to his brother at Government House in Wellington in 1942 and is now on display at the Auckland War Memorial Museum.

Seventy-five Squadron was formed in 1939 when, with a war seeming likely, the New Zealand Government offered Britain both men and machines.

Sergeant Ward was the only member of the squadron to win a VC and the first Kiwi to win the coveted decoration in World War II.

The old sergeants' mess at the Feltwell base has been converted into a community centre and will be named after Sergeant Ward on May 14.

His great-great-nephew Michael Mayne, 26, inherited the VC when he turned 21.

"It is very hard to imagine anybody taking the initiative and having the bravery to go to the lengths he did to help save his men on that flight.

"His achievement is very unbelievable and courageous and we as a family are very proud that we are related to such a brave person.

"He died fighting for us and our country and for that we are always grateful to him," Mr Mayne said.

The Titirangi resident, a sport and recreation student, did not know the community centre was being named after his relative until he was contacted by the Herald.

"My aim when I inherited the VC was to get Jimmy's story out there and let people know about how not only Jimmy but everybody involved fought and went to extreme measures to protect our country," Mr Mayne said.

"Jimmy was a very humble, modest young man and would probably be very humbled that there is a street in Auckland named after him, a postal stamp with his portrait on it, and now a community centre being named after him. Having something like this named after him is a huge privilege to the family and to Jimmy's memory."

Today, Prime Minister John Key will attend the Anzac dawn ceremony at Hyde Park in London and a service at Westminster Abbey.