WONZ 217 – Ian Sexton – WWII Radar

Guest: Ian Munro Sexton, WWII RNZAF Radar Mechanic, then Pilot
(Ham Radio Call Sign ZL1PZ)

Host: Dave Homewood

Also Sitting In: Bevan Dewes and Paul Radley

Recorded: 16th of March 2020

Released: 27th of March 2020

Duration: 1 hour 3 minutes 40 seconds

In this episode Dave Homewood sits down 99 year old veteran Ian Sexton, who served as a Radar Mechanic with the RNZAF during WWII, and later in the war he remustered to train a a pilot.

Joining the RNZAF in 1941 and training to be a Wireless Mechanic, on completion of his training in that field he was offered the opportunity to move into a top secret field, which when he accepted the offer turned out to be Radar. He trained as a Radar Mechanic and was posted first to the top secret Radar site at Piha, and after a time there he moved on to another new site at Maunganui Head. They were keeping watch over the Tasman Sea approaches

Then Ian was selected to be part of a new team who were to be the first ground directed interception Radar unit at Guadalcanal, arriving there in February 1943. This unit was plotting the incoming Japanese night bombers and giving commands via a US ground base to the US night fighter pilots to aid their interception of the bombers. Their work greatly reduced the affect of Japanese bombing at Henderson Field.

Next Ian was sent back to New Zealand to prepare a new Radar team who were to head up to New Georgia, but during this he became ill from the anti-malarial medicine they were given so he did not return to the Pacific.

Instead In remustered to aircrew, and began training as a pilot. He gained his pilot’s brevet and completed his Service Flying Training School course on Harvards, but with the war almost over the RNZAF called a halt to training and he sat out the last month of the war waiting to be released.

Ian remembers lots of incidents, both with radar and other happenings he witnessed, such as the B-17 crash on take off from Whenuapai, and the Hudson hitting the hangar also at Whenuapai.

Postwar Ian picked up flying again from Pukekohe East for many years. He is also still a keen ham radio operator, and he compiled two volumes of memories sent in by around 50 ex-Radar operators and mechanics, members of the Radar Reunion Society. The books and called Radar Stories from the R.N.Z.A.F., 1939-1945 Vol. 1 and 2.