Two distinguished WWII servicemen passed away in Mahurangi last month.
Trevor Dill and Norris Wyatt both died on June 28, aged 95.
Trevor Dill enlisted in the RNZAF at age 20 on January 1, 1942. By October 1943 he had completed his first tour of operations as a navigator on Stirling bombers and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal.
“On one night’s bombing mission of Nuremburg, we lost 96 bombers of the 600 that set out. Seven hundred men were killed that night – more than in the whole of the Battle of Britain,” Trevor said in an interview with RSA manager Robbie Blair four years ago.
Trevor met future wife, Jessie, in England and was engaged the day before being shipped home in September 1945. They were married in Warkworth in September, 1946.
After the war, Trevor and Jessie settled on a farm in the Kaipara Hills, raising five children and clearing acres of hilly gorse and blackberries. Even in his 90’s, Trevor would still spend a couple of days a week on the farm.
The couple were lifetime members of the Kaipara Flats Tennis Club, and attended the club’s 100-year anniversary in April.
Norris Wyatt was born in Leigh on February 9, 1921. His schooling at Little Omaha ended at age 12, when he started working full-time on the family farm. Draught horses were used for the heavy farm work and for ploughing.
Norris also worked at the family sawmill in Leigh, which was steam-powered until 1944. At 17, he volunteered for the North Auckland Mounted Rifles. After marrying his sweetheart, Betty Chessum, at Warkworth Methodist Church in 1942, Norris switched to the navy and attended officer-training college. The cadets were trained to row, but Norris was well practised, towing logs by rowboat to the family sawmill at the head of Leigh Harbour.
Norris was assigned to a 114-foot landing craft vessel with a crew of 12. Their task was to transport military equipment from Poole and Southhampton, across the channel to France. With a top speed of seven knots, they were vulnerable to U-boat attack on the 12-hour crossing. On return trips they were loaded with hundreds of German POW’s with most of the crew on guard duty. Norris returned to New Zealand in January 1946 after two years away and he became an expert bushman and tree feller. Norris and Betty had eight children. He is remembered as a hard worker, mentor, peacemaker, and a gentleman.
