James MILLER
Known as Jim

Serial Number: NZ429464
RNZAF Trade: Leading Aircraftsman
Date of Enlistment: 1942
Rank Achieved: Leading Aircraftman
Flying Hours:
Operational Sorties:

Date of Birth: 11th of April 1908, at Araohue, in Northland
Personal Details: Jim was born in  Arapohue in Northland. His father died when he was four years old and his mother mainly raised him in  Cambridge, at 51 Grey Street. He attended Hamilton High School and Auckland Grammar School.

He returned to Cambridge from Te Hana and Kaipara Flats in 1936. For many years from 1950 he owned and operated the Post Office Butchery, now Wholly Cow.

Jim served on the Cambridge Borough Council, the Cambridge High School Board of Governors, the Cambridge Scout Committee and was coach of the exceptionally successful Hautapu senior rugby team from 1956-64. He was also a rugby referee in Cambridge and a life member of the Waikato Rugby Referees Association.

In later years, he was an accomplished trout fisherman. He learned a great deal about Lister diesel engines and took DIY to a high level – a chessboard, miniature brass steam engine, and in the 1960s a large plywood and fibreglass caravan and an eight car concrete block garage at the family home at 51 Grey Street.

Jim was the brother-in-law of another airman, Maurice Glanville.  He was married to Win (Olive Winifred) (née Glanville). Jim and Win had six children, Peter, John, Margaret, Jim, Brian and David, most of whom attended Cambridge Primary and High Schools.

Service Details: Jim volunteered for the Royal New Zealand Air Force in 1942. He became a radar engineer, serving initially on the Cape Farewell station in Golden Bay.

In November 1943, he was transferred via Guadalcanal, as part of RNZAF radar unit COL57, to establish and maintain a radar station located on Rendova Island, in the Solomon Islands. They were bombed only briefly and sporadically by the Japanese Air Force until the Allies forced the Japanese further north.

Apparently on Rendova he had a reputation for being able to stay under the water longer than anyone else in the unit (source: Rex Wigzell), he cut the hair of American servicemen and he recalled movies being projected onto a sheet in the jungle. 

Date of Death : Died 16th of August 1981, aged 73 years.
Buried: Cambridge Returned Services Association Lawn Cemetery, Hautapu, Cambridge

Connection with Cambridge: Jim lived in Cambridge before and after WWII

Thanks to: Huge thanks to Jim's youngest son David Miller for filling in most of the details here.

 

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