Strana 70
NZ3007, F/O Peter Gifford, No. 14 Squadron (RNZAF), Masterton, New Zealand, February 1943
AK702, F/O W. P. Pictorius, No. 4 Squadron SAAF, Gambut II, Lybie, 1942
Peter Gifford was born on April 14, 1915, in
Christchurch. At the beginning of his career,
he flew with No. 100 Squadron RAF with
Vickers Vildebeests in Singapore, later he was
transferred to No. 488 Squadron RNZAF, where
he flew Buffalos and Hurricanes. At that time,
he scored two hits on Ki-21 Sally bombers. After
the unit was redesignated No. 14 Squadron,
it re-equipped with Kittyhawks. Gifford then
claimed one probable kill of a Zero, and
after completing his first tour of duty with
No. 14 Squadron, he completed two more with
No. 19 Squadron, where he continued to fly
Kittyhawks and then Corsairs. In total, he flew
112 combat missions. He died on December
16, 2001. Aircraft NZ3007 bore the inscription
Magnolia Mufflewurt on its nose, which
was a female character from a comic strip
published by the Australian magazine Man.
The plane was delivered in a standard British
camouflage scheme using American DuPont
paints, equivalents of British Dark Green and
Dark Earth on the upper surfaces and Sky on
the lower surfaces. The New Zealanders then
repainted aircraft that were sent to fight outside
New Zealand, either with Olive Drab paint or
simply replaced the unsuitable Dark Earth with
their own Ocean Blue paint. This was probably
also the case with this aircraft. The lower
surfaces may have been left in Sky, or they may
have been repainted with the local Sky Grey.
No. 4 Squadron of the South African Air Force
was formed in April 1939 in Durban. Initially,
it was equipped with Hawker Hartbees, Furies,
and Wapitis. It was disbanded in December of
that year and reestablished on March 24, 1941,
at Waterkloof Air Base, where it took delivery
of Hurricanes. Operational training took place
in Kenya, where the unit protected the country
from possible Italian attacks from Somaliland
(an unrecognized republic in northern Somalia).
There its pilots first tried out the Tomahawks.
From September 1, 1941, the squadron moved
to Egypt, where it was fully re-armed with
Tomahawks. It completed its first operational
mission with them on November 12 and
remained in Egypt to take part in all the desert
battles from Operation Crusader to El Alamein.
The squadron also supported the advance into
Tunisia and the invasions of Sicily and Italy.
In July 1943, it exchanged its Kittyhawks III for
Spitfires and moved to Sicily in August. From
there, it headed for the Italian mainland, where
it carried out attacks on ground targets until
the end of the fighting. The aircraft, in standard
desert camouflage, were supplemented with an
antelope symbol in a green, yellow-edged field
in the shape of the African continent.
KITS 12/2025
INFO Eduard70
December 2025