Flight Lieutenant Ian Herbert
RNZAF Lancaster Bomber Pilot RAF
Ian Herbert was another remarkable World War Two Taranaki pilot. The local farm boy went on to become a Lancaster bomber pilot, who flew his crew of 7 on night raids between England and Germany.
On the night of December 4 1944 Ian lifted the giant bomber off RAF Balderton in Nottinghamshire, this time flying Mark 1 Lancaster LM259 for 227 Squadron.
Near the target, Heilbronn, the aircraft was attacked by a German Nightfighter, and raked with canon fire killing one crew member.
Despite two engines on fire, Herbert steadied the crippled bomber sufficiently to enable his crew to safely bail out into a dark enemy sky.
He was captured by the Germans and incarcerated as a prisoner of war.
In an amazing twist, after the war Ian met Peter Spoden, the German fighter pilot who shot him down, and the two became friends.
Another irony of war was romance amidst the savagery of combat.
Ian Herbert, the dashing young airman from New Zealand met Ruth Bowman, a beautiful English nurse from Carlisle. “I knew he was the one in an instant” she recalls.
When the war ended, the pilot, the serviceman, the debonair Taranaki boy brought his bride back to New Zealand.
They raised their family at Tarurutangi, a few kilometres from here where the family farms to this day.
Ian and Ruth Herbert were together for 60 years: He passed away on 24th July 2006.
