262

N.A. HEFFERNAN.
2. (centre aligned)
F/O Heffernan arrived at No. 12 (RNZAF) Personnel and Receiving Centre, Brighton on the 16th February 1944 and on the 23rd of the same month was posted to No. 3 School of General Reconnaissance, Squires Gate, Lancashire, afterwards proceeding to No. 132 Operational Training Unit, East Fortune, Scotland on the 28th March and to No. 5 (Coastal) Operational Training Unit, Turnberry, Ayrshire on the 17th May where he crewed up and completed his training as navigator of Beaufighter aircraft. On the 31st May he was posted to No. 489 (RNZAF) Squadron at Langham, Norfolk. From this base, as navigator of Beaufighter aircraft, he took part in 34 operational flights, the target including anti-E Boat patrols off the Dutch, Belgian and French Coasts; armed reconnaissance patrols of enemy occupied coasts from Dieppe to Norway; attacks on shipping off Le Havre, Dieppe, the Hook of Holland, Heligoland and Stavanger, in Norway.

F/O Heffernan was the navigator of a Beaufighter aircraft engaged on an operational flight against enemy shipping off the Norwegian Coast on the night of the 28/29th January, 1495. The aircraft failed to return to its base and both members of the crew were classified as missing. In due course the death of F/O Heffernan was presumed to have occurred on the 28th January 1945.

Later information was received that the body of the pilot of the aircraft, W/O R.W.G. Leslie of Christchurch had been buried in the Municipal Cemetery at Bergen, Norway. A post war casualty search revealed that the aircraft had crashed off the Norwegian Coast and both F/O Heffernan and W/O Leslie were buried in the Mollendal Cemetery at Bergen.

Find a Grave link with a photo of F/O Heffernan: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/20954852/neville_alexander-heffernan/photo

4/1/314 AS2
362 hrs. as navigator.

F/O M.B. Heffernan, (right aligned)
R.N.Z.A.F Station, (right aligned)
WHENUAPAI. (right aligned & underlined)