Over the past few days I've been doing some research for my kids about my father's cousin from Invercargill New Zealand who was a pilot in the RAF in 1940.
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| Sergeant Jack Courtis |
Service Number NZ391343
New Zealand, Australia and Canada provided a large number of
personnel for the RAF as well as equipping their own squadrons during World War
Two. One hundred and thirty five New Zealand pilots fought in the Battle of
Britain, which was the third largest contingent of pilots behind Britain and
Poland. One of those New Zealand pilots was my father’s cousin, Jack Courtis.
Jack was born in Bluff at the bottom of the South Island on October 1st 1914 and was the only child of Arthur Henry and Ruth Violet Courtis. He attended
Waihopi School and Southland Boys’ High, wherre he passed his university entrance exams
in 1931.
Jack was a keen swimmer and at one time held the Southland Intermediate
Breaststroke Championship title and was also a member of the Southland
water-polo team which competed in the New Zealand Swimming Championships in
1939. He also captained the Oreti Surf-life Savings team which won the 4 man
Otago championships in 1939.
Before the war Jack worked as a clerk for the Vacuum Oil Company in Invercargill. With war brewing once more in Europe Jack applied for the Civil Reserve of Pilots in May 1939 but was turned down due to an excess number of candidates. He reapplied shortly after the outbreak of war in September 1939 and this time he was accepted into the Royal New Zealand Airforce as a trainee pilot. Jack was enlisted on the 19th November 1939, aged 25 at the RNZAF Ground Training School at Levin as an airman-pilot.
After completing the Ground Training Course in December 1939 Jack was posted to No. 1 Elementary Flying Training School at Taieri, near Dunedin, where he commenced his pilot training. Then on 13th of February 1940 Jack was posted to No. 1 Flying Training School, Wigram in Christchurch, where he trained on Vickers Vilderbeest aircraft. Jack was awarded his flying badge on 6th April 1940 but on the 29th of April 1940 he was injured when the aircraft in which he was training crashed while attempting to make a forced landing. After four weeks in hospital Jack resumed his training and was promoted to Sergeant on the 28th of June 1940.
“We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…
France finally capitulated on 25th of June 1940
and on the 14th of July 1940 Churchill delivered his “War of the
Unknown Warriors” speech on the BBC which ended with the following words:
Jack alighted on Liverpool docks on 27th August. The United Kingdom onto which he landed was indeed “standing alone” against the might of Nazi Germany which had conquered all of Western Europe and the Battle of Britain was raging in the skies above southern Britain.
After his arrival in the UK Jack was posted to No 6 Operational Training Unit at Sutton Bridge in Lincolnshire on the 11th of September. Sutton Bridge was a Gunnery Training School located in southern England and trained both fighter and bomber pilots. This Gunnery School was the first of its kind in the world and Jack spent just over two weeks at the base engaged on general operational exercises, training on Miles Master, Fairey Battle and Harvard aircraft before converting to the main fighter used in the Battle of Britain, the Hawker Hurricane.
After
completing his training at Sutton Bridge, Jack was posted to No. 111
Squadron (RAF) on the 28th of September. 111 Squadron was nicknamed the Treble 1s and was
the first RAF squadron to be equipped with Hurricanes in June 1938. Part of 111
Squadron fought in the Battle for France having joined with No. 253 Squadron to
form a joint formation. Half this combined fighter squadron was deployed in France
while the remainder of the pilots and planes remained in Britain. This was probably
due to Air Chief Marshall Hugh Dowdings refusal to commit all of Britian’s
fighter’ strength to the Battle for Fance, arguing that the planes would be
required to defend the skies above Britain.111 Squadron Crest
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| 111 Squadron Hurricanes, March 1938. |
As well as taking part in the Battle for France the Hurricanes of the Treble 1s flew defensive flights over the beaches during the Dunkirk evacuation. During the Battle of Britain the Treble 1s were part of 11 Fighter Group, which was commanded by New Zealander Air-vice Marshall Keith Park, were stationed at RAF Croydon. 11 Group bore the brunt of the Luftwaffe attacks and the fighters of 11 Group saw almost constant action. 111 Squadron pioneered dangerous head on attacks against the Luftwaffe bombers. While based at RAF Croydon the Treble 1 claimed 47 enemy aircraft shot down for the loss of 18 of their own Hurricanes. The Squadron suffered heavy losses and was rotated to RAF Drem in East Lothian, Scotland, a comparatively quieter sector, in early September and became part of 13 Fighter Group.
RAF Drem was located just north of the village of Drem in
East Lothian, Scotland not far from the city of Edinburgh and was an air
defence fighter base for that city and the shipping area around the Firth of
Forth. The motto of the station was Exiit Hinc Lumen which means
"Light has departed from this place".
It was at Drem on the 28th of September 1940 that
Jack joined No. 111 Squadron. For the next six weeks Jack flew as part of the
Teble 1s flying in defensive sweeps and reconnaissance patrols over Scotland
and the North Sea.
On the 5th of December 1940, a Hurricane needed to be flown up to RAF Montrose airfield. Ken Dawick, who was a fellow kiwi and mate of Jack’s, recalled that as nobody was willing to volunteer for the job to fly the Hurricane to Montrose a pilot was chosen by drawing straws. Jack lost the draw and so headed off in Hurricane P3470 to Montrose. Jack never reached his destination. His plane crashed into a hillside some thirty miles North West of Edzell in bad weather and he was killed.
At the time of his death Jack had logged 244 hours of flying time.
Source: Aircrew Remembered website- Jack Courtis
Jack lies buried in Sleepyhillock Cemetry, Montrose, Scotland and is one
of 127 New Zealand airmen buried in Scottish war graves whom ‘watch over Scotia
still.’
Sergeant Jack Courtis being laid to rest. Photo provided by Peter Leslie
At the height of the Battle of Britain, Churchill in his speech on August 20th 1940 to the House of Commons, stated that:
The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire,
and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out
to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant
challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their
prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much
owed by so many to so few.
Truer words have never been spoken.
Finally, more than 85 years have passed since the death Jack
Courtis on a hillside far from home. He, like almost all of his generation, has
gone but the words that are recited at Cenotaphs or War Memorials up and down
the length of New Zealand at the rising of the sun on the 25th of April
every year still hold true.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow
old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Rest in peace Jack.
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