Leonard (Rod) Hewitt

• NZ BDM Birth,#646,1913.son of Leonard & Frances Anne Hewitt, nee, Webb.
• Pilot and climbed Mt Everest
• Cenotaph: RNZAF. 75 Squadron. W.W. 2.
• NZ BDM Married,#1378,1943. Gwendoline May Merriman.
• archway: Divorce. 1958. High Court, Christchurch.
• Member of the New Zealand Alpine Club:

"Rod Hewitt died in Timaru Hospital on February 1, 1964. He was born in Opotiki, but was descended from Canterbury pioneers and spent practically all his youth in Christchurch where he was educated at Christ College.

Rod's first trips to the hills were deerstalking expeditions made with his schoolfellow C.R. Hervey, but he soon became devoted to mountaineering and took part in the vigorous mountain exploration being carried out by young Canterbury climbers.

Christmas, 1938, again saw Rod, Wyn Barnett and George Doig in the Tasman with hopes for Mount Tasman, but there were repeated snowfalls, and a reconnaissance of Syme Ridge and an ascent of Pioneer Pass their only climbing achievements. Rod had better luck at Easter when with John Clegg and L. King, he climbed D'Archiac from the Godley. In October, with Wyn and others, he climbed Alma in the Two Thumbs Range - the following month was in the R.N.Z.A.F.

In June, 1940, Rod left for England to join the R.A.F., and as a bomber pilot in "75" Squadron saw service in Europe - over Berlin and as far as Italy. In April 1941 he had brief leave at Loch Lomand in the Western Highlands (climbing Ben Nevis in a snowstorm), before flying to the Middle East where he served for a year. Out there he survived the third of his crash landings and had a spell in hospital, where the brilliant surgery of New Zealand doctors on his injured leg made it possible for him to climb again. He was sent back to England and left for New Zealand in August, 1942. He had a brief reintroduction to the New Zealand mountains as a member of a search party to Malte Brun, when on a short holiday before a final tour of duty in the Pacific from April, 1944 to September, 1945."

(from the New Zealand Alpine Journal, Vol.XX, No.51, 1964) AWMM