By JO-MARIE BROWN
Only after the end of World War II did Ray Richards learn that two of his New Zealand Fleet Air Arm comrades had been beheaded by the Japanese.
Mr Richards, a pilot in the famous 1945 attacks on oil refineries in Palembang, Sumatra, was disturbed to hear that
six pilots - including the two New Zealanders - had been shot down, captured and beheaded while helping to deprive Japan of aviation fuel.
But he had to carry on regardless, just as he did each time he lost a friend or colleague in battle.
"We just had to absorb it and that was that," he said.
The 82-year-old Aucklander does not often speak about being a Corsair fighter pilot with Britain's Royal Navy.
But today will be an exception. He's joining more than 100 Fleet Air Arm veterans and widows at a convention in Rotorua.
"If we talk - as we will this weekend - we will be laughing. We won't be crying because the good times are what you remember."
More than 1000 New Zealanders joined the prestigious Fleet Air Arm, more than half as aircrew.
In fact, New Zealanders - mostly pilots - made up 10 per cent of the aircrew flying off British aircraft carriers around the globe.
They flew in many operations, including the sinking of the feared German battleship Bismarck in 1941 and the raid on Palembang.
"It was extremely exciting stuff," Mr Richards recalls. "It was our job to attack the airfields intensely, usually early in the morning, and shoot up the aircraft that were there and make them unserviceable."
Mr Richards said the friendships members made were essential to coping with the horrors of war.
"We knew them as well as our brothers. They were our great companions. Some of us were together for 3 1/2 years without a break."
