ANZAC Day Reflections
from Gaylene Lines
How, in our modern world would we have believed that COVID-19 would have taken away our ANZAC Memorial services around the world in 2020.
While standing on my own outside my letterbox at 5.45am with an old small transistor radio beside my ear to listen to the short service my thoughts went back to July 1944 when my grandparents and my mother were handed, what I suppose, was that dreaded telegram.
On opening it stated: “I am sorry to inform you that your son Sub Lieutenant Godfrey Hudson Parker has been reported missing in action”. Of course the next letter was confirmation from the New Zealand High Commission based in London that stated his plane was seen going down in the Irish Sea…location given….There was one vessel close by that sailed to his rescue however not even an oil slick was located.
Godfrey boarded the R.M.S. Rimutaka at the Port of Wellington bound for the UK on 30 August 1941. At every opportunity he had there was a letter sent home. He had been sent on many Reconnascence flights to the likes of Canada, etc. I still have every one of the letters he sent back home. Godfrey worked for the NZ Railways in Wellington as a Clerk before joining the FAA. Mum and I returned to Henstridge and to the Yeoville Fleet Air Arm Museum to see where they were based in 1999. I again last year.
GH Parker (Sub Lieutenant), Henstridge, 718 Sqn RNZNVR; believed EF, killed 5 July 1944 aged 23. – Supermarine Seafire Pilot. Attached to the HMS Dipper.
What did I miss the most this year…….The RNZAF flyover.