France to honour NZ pilot

PARIS - World War II Spitfire pilot John Pattison believes there are others more deserving than him of being awarded France's highest honour, the Legion d'Honneur.

Mr Pattison will receive the award from President Jacques Chirac in thanks for his role in helping to liberate France from the Nazis.

The Havelock North man has been flown to Paris by the French Government for the 60th anniversary of the D-day landings in Normandy.

Mr Chirac is decorating 14 veterans, each representing a country involved in the landings, and ultimately intends to bestow 300 veterans - including 10 New Zealanders - with the award.

Mr Pattison, who was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1943 and made a companion of the Distinguished Service Order in 1945, was surprised by the French honour.

"The people who should be awarded are the people who went over by sea, a rough sea. They were seasick, they jumped into water just about up to their necks, and had to wade ashore to a very unfriendly welcome.

"I was merely flying above it," he said. "I am very proud to receive it but I'm also slightly embarrassed. Why me?"

He relates the story of another airman who had said he was merely "doing his duty" on D-day, June 6, 1944.

"It was a wonderful adventure. I couldn't afford to travel on my own. The Government took me," he said.

"Let me tell you, of course, that I'm very, very pleased to have survived it and still be alive but I'm also very conscious of the many, many people and a lot of very good friends who didn't come back."

Shortly after midnight on the day of the invasion, Mr Pattison saw a sky "black with heavy bombers going over to soften up the beachheads". He took off at first light.

"There were four lanes of shipping, 100 miles [160km] of sea, and from the air it looked as though you could skip from ship to ship from South England into Normandy."

Having been shot down twice himself - during the Battle of Britain and while flying sweeps over France - he shot down two German aircraft that day.

The first plane just "happened to be there, happened to get in my gunsights - pressed the trigger and down he went".

He had thought he would be elated at shooting down an enemy aircraft but that was not the case.

"After all, the young German aviators were very much akin to what we were. They were fighting for Germany, we were fighting for Britain and France and so forth."

He believes it is a "very good thing" that German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was invited to the D-day commemorations.

"At the time, I thought the only good German was a dead one. But, you know, you can't really blame all the young German fighters for what Hitler did."

He makes a few comments when asked about the United States-led invasion of Iraq and President George W. Bush but then thinks better of having these reported "while the Americans are about".

Mr Bush is among those invited to attend the 60th commemorations.

"War today is so different to what it was 60 years ago. War now is almost instant because of TV," he said. "Ban all wars."

Flying to war

* John Pattison shot down two German aircraft on D-day.

* He had been shot down twice himself, during the Battle of Britain and over France.

* He quotes an old saying: "The pilots who said they were never afraid, they were liars."

- NZPA