RNZAF Spitfire pilot Max Collett, left, passed away in Napier on Christmas Day age 99. He was thought to have been the last living Spitfire pilot in New Zealand. Photo / File
RNZAF Spitfire pilot Max Collett, left, passed away in Napier on Christmas Day age 99. He was thought to have been the last living Spitfire pilot in New Zealand. Photo / File
Many will have known Maxwell Collett as one of the last surviving World War II Spitfire veterans, a man whose extraordinary achievements include sinking enemy submarines with the iconic wartime plane.
But Collett’s children, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren will simply remember him as a family man with a “wicked, fun-lovingsense of humour”.
His family believe the Napier man may have been the last living WWII Spitfire pilot in New Zealand before he died at home on Christmas Day, aged 99.
Dianne Shefford said her father had said that the mark of a successful life was whether or not you produce a good family.
“He was very stoic and he had real integrity and just taught us the values of how to treat people properly.”
His son Noel said Collett was a loyal and community-minded family man with a strong sense of duty to his country and community who was also very fun.
“Dad was an active member for decades of the Napier Lions Club and also served as its president. He was actively involved in trying to improve the community around him.”
World War II Spitfire veteran Max Collett's children Rosemary, Noel and Dianne celebrate his life. Photo / Paul Taylor
Collett grew up in Waipawa before joining the air force at age 18, eventually flying Spitfires with the New Zealand 485 Squadron.
He ended the war as a flight officer with a Mention In Dispatches for being one of two pilots to sink three German midget submarines in a Spitfire - he and Flight Lieutenant T Kearins are thought to be the only two Spitfire pilots to ever sink a submarine during the war.
He was also one of several Hawke’s Bay veterans awarded the Legion of Honour, France’s highest military medal, in 2014 for contributions to the Normandy landings in 1944.
Alongside his accomplishments, Collett had a sense of humour about what he did during the war, often joking that he was credited with destroying three aircraft when they were all his own.
Noel said that on one occasion an inexperienced pilot went to land behind Collett and landed on top of his plane, another of his planes was destroyed in a German blitz of Allied airfields in France on January 1, 1945, and a third was hit by anti-aircraft fire over the River Rhine and Collett was forced to bail, becoming a member of the “Caterpillar Club”.
“If you had to parachute out of your aircraft during wartime because you were shot out of the sky and you used an Irvin parachute to land, the company gave you a little gold caterpillar because the silk of the parachute was made by caterpillar silk,” Noel said.
After the war, Collett returned to Waipawa and worked as an accountant at the Public Trust, where he met his wife Noeline, who he was married to for just over 60 years before she passed away in 2011.
They had four children, Rosemary, Vivienne, Noel and Diane, and have six grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, soon to be nine.
Max Collett standing in the red next to a Spitfire with fellow veterans of the legendary fighter aircraft. Photo / File
The family moved to Napier in 1952, where he continued to work as an accountant until his retirement in his early 60s.
Dianne and Noel said Collett was very fit and active right into his 90s, playing tennis every week until he was 90 and driving himself until he was 97.
Noel said Collett’s last flight was when he was 90 years old, in a Gypsy Moth.
He spent the final years of his life living independently in a villa at Summerset In The Bay at Greenmeadows, Napier.
His funeral will be at 10.30am on Friday, January 6 at Beth Shan Funeral Home in Napier.
