WONZ 341 – Ray Tocker

Guest: Warrant Officer Raymond William Tocker 73469 (18 June 1931 to 24 September 2015)

Hosts: Dave Homewood

Recorded: 11th of February 2013

Released: 6th of January 2026

Duration:  1 hour 15 minutes 32 seconds

In this Wings Over New Zealand Show episode Dave Homewood pulled another previously unpublished older interview out of the archives. The recording is with the late Ray Tocker, who was a good mate of Dave’s. On a visit to Ray’s place, a couple of blocks from Dave’s, Ray began telling stories of his RNZAF service so Dave gained permission to pull his recorder out of his rucksack and hit record.

The result was a great conversation with Ray telling some wonderful and often very funny stories about his days in the RNZAF in the 1950s. The conversation was heavily focused on his days at RNZAF Base Ohakea working in the maintenance hangar on Mosquitoes, Devons, a Grumman Avenger, and more. And he also talks about some adventures when he was a Flight Engineer on the Short Sunderland flying boat, including the incident where he was aboard Sunderland NZ4113 when it scraped its belly along the new runway at the opening of Wellington Airport, and how he repaired the hole to save the aircraft.

Ray was awarded a medal for his actions in saving the aircraft. From Colin Hanson’s By Such Deeds – Honours and awards in the Royal New Zealand Air Force, 1923 – 1999:

TOCKER, Warrant Officer Raymond William, (cvsa).
H73469; Born Ohakune, 18 Jun 1931; RNZAF 14 Apr 1949 to 27 Apr 1973; Engine Fitter, then Flight Engineer.
Citation Queen’s Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air (QB1960): Not available. The following is an extract from a letter to the then Sgt Tocker from the CAS – “This well earned award recognises your personal efforts in enabling the Sunderland damaged at the opening of Wellington Airport [on 25 Oct 1959] to carry out a safe landing on its return to Hobsonville.”

Quick Links:

•  Ray’s autobiography Adventures of a Kiwi Airman on Amazon For any inquiries into this book, contact Ray’s daughter Ali, email: [email protected]

Above: Five photos come via Antonio McDonald of that hangar fire at Ohakea that Ray talks about.

Here is an Archives NZ film about that Rongotai Airshow for Wellington Airport’s opening, showing the unfortunate incident for the Sunderland.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPXcByce_hY

The music at the end of this episode is Wild Flower by Joachim Karud.