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Early in August this year I attended the 150th reunion of my Dunedin,NZ public school Otago Boys High School. The old school has had many changes over the years,but the one that applies to this group is the establishment of a 'house' system and the naming of two of the four 'houses' established. Two of the more famous old boys of OBHS are Sir Keith Park and Sir Archibald McIndoe and these men have had two 'houses' named after them.
Keith Park was the commander of 11 group during the Battle of Britain and the man,who along with his boss Sir Hugh Dowding could have,in the words of the great fighter pilot Johnnie Johnson,lost the war in an afternoon. Unwilling to engage in the politicking after the battle by the obnoxious Air Vice Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory, commander of 12 Group,Park found himself back in action,literally,as the commander of Maltas air defences during the German/Italian seige of the George Cross island. After the war Park returned to New Zealand where he engaged in various civic activities until his death in 1975 aged 82.
Sir Archibald McIndoe became a plastic surgeon,working with his cousin Sir Harold Gillies,also born in Dunedin and founding a Centre for Plastic and Jaw Surgery at the Queen Victoria Hospital at East Grinstead,Sussex. There, he treated very deep burns and serious facial disfigurement like loss of eyelids. Patients at the hospital formed the Guinea Pig Club. His work on restoring the minds and bodies of burnt pilots have been remembered and celebrated world-wide. He died very young in 1960 aged 59.
So there you have it,a brief diary concerning my old school and the contribution of two commonwealth citizens to the allied WW2 effort.
Far more important I may add than my own few years navigating the pursuit of submarines in Sunderlands and Orions.
