BAZflyer: Bill’s Boot

Any aviator’s emotions can not fail to be stired when standing in the presence of an airplane type representative of World War Two. By any standards these flying machines are nowadays old, at least 75 years old. But the passage of time does not change just how young the men and women were who crewed these airplanes in defence of liberty during WW2. Many of them, still boys and girls by today’s standards, shouldered almost unimaginable responsibilities on our behalf.

Over the years Bazflyers confess to more than once standing beside a Lancaster bomber, looking up towards its elevated cockpit, trying to imagine oneself as a youthful 20-something-year-old pilot flying such a huge machine with its crew on a mission of war into hostile territory on a dark night. I seriously doubt those attempts of mental imagery went anywhere near garnering the emotions and fear experienced on a daily basis by the young wartime pilots and their bomber crews.

Halifax Bomber on RAF 35 Squadron.

Here is a story with a twist, about one of those young wartime pilots. He was Flying Officer ‘Bill’ Hickson. Like many of the men and women who survived the war, Bill came home and slipped quietly back into his former life. Although he eventually became a high-ranking civil servant few people were ever aware of his wartime involvement as a young bomber pilot.

Bazflyers stumbled across the Kiwi Connection eight years ago while visiting friends in rural Holland. Being from New Zealand and pilots it wasn’t long before one of the locals alerted us to a wartime connection the village had to a downed New Zealand airman and how they had, for decades, taken care of a flying boot discovered nearby.

Bill Hickson was still a teenager when he left his humble job as a junior technician in the Auckland Telephone Exchange to volunteer as a trainee pilot with the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Within weeks of receiving his pilot’s wings Bill was in the thick of war flying anti-submarine patrols in Whitley bombers out of St Eval in Cornwall. He then flew four-engine Halifax bombers for RAF 51 Squadron on raids over Europe, while based in Yorkshire.

F/O ‘Bill' Hickson just 20 years of age.

His flying skills were recognised in an invitation to join the elite Pathfinder Force, whose job it was to drop indicators to mark targets for following aircraft. Pilot Officer Hickson, as he was then, chose to ignore the slim prospects of surviving a 45-mission Pathfinder tour. In this role he was based at Graveley with the RAF's 35 Squadron. Typical missions for the squadron were to the industrial cities of the Ruhr Valley, known to aircrew as Happy Valley because of the heavy anti-aircraft defenses. Always a man of conservative speech Bill recorded flying two operations to Berlin, within three nights, dodging searchlights, fighter aircraft and ground fire, as “quite harrowing”.

Bill Hickson was known for being partial to a meal of bacon and eggs. It was June 21, 1943, when a WAAF waitress offered him his favorite dish before he flew out on a mission to Europe. Being a bit tight on time he asked the WAAF to put the bacon and eggs on hold. He'd eat them in the morning when he got back. Little did he know it was a breakfast that had to wait…!

Later that night the 20-year-old Hickson and his crew in their Halifax bomber were shot down over Holland. The pilot who shot the Halifax and its crew out of the sky in the early morning of June 22, 1943, was none other than German fighter ace Günther Radusch, himself barely 30 years of age. That night 35 squadron lost the most aircraft from any squadron on any night raid for the entire war - pretty sobering stuff when you think of how many people were on each Halifax! Rear gunner Maxie Brown (28), and second pilot Henry Krohn (21) an Australian with the RAAF, both were killed when the plane went down. Bill survived the crash - minus one of his flying boots.

In RNZAF uniform, with only one flying boot on and with singed hair, he approached Mrs. van Staveren on her family farm near the town of Venray, 115km south east of Amsterdam. By chance, one of her sons, Cornelius, was a leader in the Dutch underground movement and the family took him in. Bill evaded capture for a few weeks before being picked-up by the Gestapo and sent to Stalag Luft III. He was there for the Great Escape - where he acted as a lookout for the forgers and it is where Bill had his 21st birthday. Recalling the executions of fellow airmen, Bill simply recorded, “The impact of the callous murders of the 50 officers was terribly depressing for us all".

Bill’s flying boot was found and looked after by Venlo people for 66 years before it was reunited with Bill on his 87th birthday. The boot is now archived in the NZ Airforce Museum and is where the Bazflyers were finally able to piece together the last threads of this story. Thanks to museum staff for your kind assistance.

At the end of the war Bill sailed back to Wellington and after delisting travelled north by train to his then home in Auckland arriving there in time for his 23rd birthday on September 6, 1945. Bill always regarded himself as being on borrowed time ever since he was shot down. He resumed his former career in the Post Office and went all the way to the top, retiring as Director General with responsibility for the working lives of 39,000 employees. He never piloted an aircraft again.

As for the bacon and eggs….when he returned to his RAF Graveley base in England at the end of the war, there waiting for him in the mess was the same WAAF who had served him two years earlier. She had never forgotten Bill’s food order. Without a word being spoken, she disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a plate of bacon and eggs.

Bill passed away a few days before his 89th birthday.

Bill on his 87th birthday after being reunited with his long lost boot.