Anzac Day Hits Home After Wreck Of Uncle's WWII Aircraft Found

Saturday, 26 April 2025, 5:47 pm
Article: RNZ

Rachel Helyer Donaldson, Journalist

Correction: This story has been corrected to clarify that John Gartside worked in Neighbourhood Support with Gisborne Police, not as a police officer.

Anzac Day has been particularly poignant for one Gisborne man, after learning just weeks ago that his uncle's World War II plane was found.

John Gartside, who worked in Neighbourhood Support with Gisborne Police, was born five years after the war, and was named after his father's younger brother, an RNZAF warrant officer who went missing, presumed lost in action, nearly 82 years ago.

His namesake, 26-year-old John Gartside from Huntly, was part of a four-man crew on board a 454 Squadron's RAAF Baltimore bomber aeroplane, which took off on a photography mission from Benghazi in Libya, on the morning of 3 December, 1943.

The Baltimore was attacked seven times by two German Messerschmitt fighters, before eventually being shot down just off the coast of Antikythera, a tiny Greek island between Crete and the Peloponnese Peninsula.

There were three men still aboard the aircraft when it was attacked and shot down. The fourth crew member, pilot Flight Lieutenant William Horsley, survived by jumping from the plane, Gartside said.

Warrant Officer John Gartside was the air gunner, and the other men lost were Australian gunner Pilot Officer Colin William Walker, and navigator Flight Lieutenant Leslie Norman Row, who was British.

The younger John Gartside's mother had told him all about his uncle who never made it back home to his family in Huntly.

Gartside said he was told his uncle had got out of the plane but went back to get his mate out.

"As far as I'm aware, the pilot thought John had jumped out of the plane and into the water. But he didn't, and the plane hit the water and went down very quickly and John drowned."

Gartside had his Uncle John's war medals framed so that his memory could live on in the family.

Then, last month, a call came "out of the blue" to say the aircraft had been discovered beneath the sea off the coast of Greece. An Athens-based exploration team had spent seven years searching for the wreck using sonar technology.

"The man said 'Are you sitting down?', I said, 'No, but I will'," Gartside said.

"He told me the plane had been found. I'll tell you what, I just about burst into tears over it actually."

Gartside immediately rang his daughter Darlene, who had helped him research her great-uncle's story.

Incredibly, part of the plane was still intact and well preserved.

"What really amazed me was the number 454 was still on the plane, and that's when they knew for sure."

This year's Anzac Day was particularly emotional as the first after he heard the news, he said.

"It actually hit me quite badly too. We were always going to Anzac parades, but this one's just going to be really special for me.

"One of my uncles got shot, it's always been one of the hardest things. I've been looking into it for a fair while trying to track down things."

It was "amazing" to get the news after so long, and it had given him some closure, he said.

"I'm glad that it came up now, while I'm still here. If my parents were still alive, they'd be over the moon. If my grandparents were still alive, yes, I think they'd be over the moon too.

"My daughter Darlene is only 35 but she was just as happy as I was.''

The three airmen were listed as missing presumed dead and their names are commemorated on the Alamein Memorial in Egypt.

Gartside and his daughter also said it was right that the aircraft's wreck was to remain as it is.

"There were no remains in it, so we feel like that is the right thing to do. It can stay there as a memorial.''

John Gartside was born on 26 October 1917, the son of Charles and Jean Gartside (nee Pirritt). He was a labourer at Glen Afton coal mine before enlisting in the RNZAF. He trained in Canada as a wireless operator/air gunner before embarking for the United Kingdom, before being posted to Egypt, and Libya.

He was shot down on his 64th operation.

Next year Gartside and Darlene plan to fly to Egypt to visit the Alamein memorial. They also hope to see where the plane lies.

"It's sad to think how young he was, and it will make Anzac Day a bit more special.''

© Scoop Media

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