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🇳🇿WWII uncovered: Honouring the Heroes We Lost: Porokoru Patapu Pohe of the Royal New Zealand Air Force: Hero of the Great Escape.

 🇳🇿WWII uncovered: Honouring the Heroes We Lost: Porokoru Patapu Pohe of the Royal New Zealand Air Force: Hero of the Great Escape.



Porokoru Patapu "John" Pohe was one of the first Māori pilots in the Royal New Zealand Air Force. John spent two years in the Army Reserves as part of the Manawatu Mountain Rifles Regiment before joining the Air Force. 


In September 1940 he began training at the Ground Training School in Levin and  completed his training - graduating from the Woodbourne Air Force Base in Blenheim, New Zealand in January of 1941. He would then go to Canada to be trained in night flying and navigation.


On 24 August 1941 John was posted to No. 51 Squadron RAF and flew 22 bombing operations and was promoted to Flight Sergeant in October of the same year.


According to the National Air and Space Museum: "Pohe requested a return to an operational combat squadron. In August 1943, he began training on one of Bomber Command’s newest 4-engine bombers, the Handley-Page Halifax. After a month learning its flight characteristics, the newly promoted Flying Officer Pohe, with a new crew, returned to 51 Squadron on September 20, 1943. Like so many others, Pohe’s second operation tour was extremely brief. 


On the evening, after two short days of re-joining 51 Squadron, Pohe, in command of his new Halifax, made his way on a night bombing mission over Hanover, Germany. 


There his aircraft came under intense anti-aircraft fire. Heavily damaged, it became evident to Pohe that he could not return with his crew back to Britain and had to make a controlled ditching in the North Sea. The entire crew survived the alighting at sea but found themselves floating in life rafts for two days. Discovered by a German reconnaissance aircraft, the group was picked up by a Kriegsmarine motor launch and processed into the German Prisoner of War system." (Alex Spencer, 23 May 2021)


Assigned to Stalag Luft III in Żagań, Poland, Flying Officer John Pohe arrived at the camp on 6 October 1943. 


Pohe participated in the mass escape plan otherwise known as "The Great Escape" Working as a tunneler, Pohe was one of the 76 prisoners that made it out of the camp during the evening of March 24-25, 1944. 


He was later captured and held at Gölitz prison until his death on 31 March 1944. John was 29 years old.


Flying Officer Porokoru Patapu Pohe lies in rest at Old Garrison Cemetery in Poznań, Miasto Poznań, Wielkopolskie, Poland.


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