John Gartside is looking forward to an extra special Anzac Day after finding out an 82-year-old family war mystery had been solved.
John, a retiree in Gisborne, was born five years after World War Two ended and was named after his uncle, RNZAF Warrant Officer John Gartside, who was missing presumed lost in action in 1943.
Early on the morning of 3 December 1943 26-year-old John, who was from Huntly, was part of a four-man crew aboard a No. 454 Squadron RAAF Baltimore when it took off on a photographic mission from Benghazi, Libya.
The Baltimore was attacked seven times by two German Messerschmidt fighters before eventually being shot down just off the coast of Antikythera, a tiny Greek island between Crete and the Peloponnese.
There were three men still aboard the aircraft when it was attacked and shot down. The fourth crew member, pilot Flight Lieutenant William Horsley, was the sole survivor.
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 namesake uncle who, sadly, never made it back home to his family in Huntly.
He’d followed up by getting his Uncle John’s medals so that his memory could live on in the family.
Then, earlier this year, a call came from out of the blue to say the aircraft had been discovered from beneath the sea off the coast of Greece.
To say John was excited to learn the plane had been recovered is an understatement.
“Heck yeah – I was excited to get the call from Australia. It’s amazing to get this news after 83 years, I was over the moon really. My daughter Darlene has been researching the story and she was just as happy as I was.’’
“It’s sad to think how young he was, and it will make Anzac Day a bit more special.’’
The three airmen were listed as missing presumed dead and their names are commemorated on the Alamein Memorial.
John and Darlene are also happy that the wreck will 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.’’
An Athens-based exploration team spent seven years searching for the wreck using sonar technology.
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.
John 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.
