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Further information is available at this site (live April, 2013) http://www.angelfire.com/ky/dawnsplace/Ted.html

Submitted by: Peter Miles

Relationship to casualty: Great Nephew

Edward (Ted) Bertram Hewitt was born on 11 September, 1922, in Opotiki, New Zealand, the son of Kathleen Iberia (Abba) and James Gordon Hewitt, the youngest of 4 children. With his pee...rs, Ted was very popular and he was regarded as light-hearted, bright young lad.  Ted attended Waimana Primary School from 1927 – 1935 and boarded at Gisborne High School from 1936-1938.  He enjoyed sport and played football, swam competitively, was good at athletics and won his Marksmanship badge at Shooting.   In Gisborne he was also a Private in the School Army Cadet Corps until he left school. On leaving school, Ted studied A.C. & D.C. electricity at Bower’s Engineering College, Auckland, “studying for City & Guilds examination in electrical engineering”. While in Auckland, he resided at the Y.M.C.A. When WWII began in September 1939, Ted was only 17 years old.  He told his parents that he wished to join the R.N.Z.A.F. but his father, having fought in World War 1 and having lost his own brother Edward in it, was not in favour of this.  Being under 21 years, Ted needed his parents’ consent to join. Consent was eventually reluctantly given and on 22nd December 1940 Ted was enlisted for aircrew training at the Ground Training School, Levin.  He was posted on the 8th February 1941 to No. 2 Elementary Flying Training School, New Plymouth, to commence his flying training.  Once elementary flying training was completed, he proceeded on 22nd March 1941 to No. 3 Service Flying Training School, Ohakea and on the 5th May 1941 he was awarded his flying badge. On the 14th June he received his promotion to Sergeant and the following month on the 2nd July he embarked for service in the East. On his arrival in Singapore, Ted was posted to No. 67 Squadron RAF, which comprised 90% NZ pilots, and underwent conversion to the Brewster Buffalo.  Whilst not an aircraft in the class of the Supermarine Spitfire, and much maligned since as an inadequate and inferior fighter aircraft, Ted was greatly impressed with the Buffalo in comparison to the training aircraft he had previously experienced (including the Tiger Moth and North American Harvard), and wrote with excitement of his training sorties with 67 Squadron.  In October 1941, 67 Squadron was moved to Burma, being based at R.A.F. Mingaladon, near Rangoon, with the threat of war with Japan seeming imminent. From October to December 1941, Ted trained, endured the heat and tropical diseases and enjoyed squadron life.  On 19th Nov 1941, in his last correspondence with his parents, he wrote “ By the way, ask him(Dad) if there is or is not going to be a damned war over here.  One day the paper says there definitely is and the next day it says it’s all off.  We have had Jap planes over doing a spot of photography but I suppose we can’t squeal when we stop to think that we do the same to them.” Like most of his peers, Ted was unaware of the military strength and preparedness of the Japanese, the inadequacies of the RAF training and equipment to deal with them, and the true horror of war. On December 25, 1941, in what was possibly his first combat sortie, Ted scrambled in the late afternoon in Buffalo W8248 as one of three aircraft in Green Section, along with three aircraft of Red Section, to intercept two incoming raids of about 60 aircraft Japanese fighter and bomber aircraft heading for the airfield and the nearby city of Rangoon. Whilst approaching the bombers, both sections were dived upon by Japanese fighters from superior altitude. During the combat, all three Green Section pilots and one Red Section pilot were shot down and killed.  Ted bailed out successfully but was dead upon reaching the ground, with one squadron eyewitness report (not recorded by the War Department) that he had been strafed whilst en parachute. Ted was 19 years old. Ted’s body was recovered and buried in the Mingaladon Cantonment Cemetery.   However, as it was not possible for the authorities to move or maintain the grave post-war, the loss of Edward (Ted) Bertram Hewitt is commemorated on the Taukkyan Memorial in the Taukkyan War Cemetery, 21 miles north of Rangoon. Original research by C.D. Miles, with summary by P.G. Miles  Sources: N.Z. War Records; Ted's letters; Abba's stories; Whakatane Beacon: N.Z. Fighter Pilot Museum "Theatres of War";Ketchil by Neil Frances   Read More