Public Contributions:

Submitted by: Carol Harvey

Relationship to casualty: Granddaughter

Donald A Jenkins was my biological grandfather. My father, Donald Jenkins Greenwood, (born Donald Keith Jenkins before being adopted by my grandmother's second husband at age 3) was barely 2 mon...ths old when my grandfather died. My grandmother knew he recieved the telegram with the information he had a son, but never got to see him again nor did he get to meet my father. My father is now 76 and deeply wishes he had kept in better touch with his relatives in New Zealand when he was young. He remembers them sending him gifts and stamps for stamp collecting, but was too young to think of writing. Now he mentions frequently how he regrets not knowing any of his father's side of his lineage or anything about them. He has his father's medals and the small album of photos my grandmother had of the father he never got to meet. If anyone on that side of the family sees this, please contact me. Dad would love to connect. Read More

Submitted by: Tracy Jenkins

Relationship to casualty: Niece

This was written by my father (Donald's youngest brother) to my eldest nephew:- My second brother Donald was a commercial artist employed by the Government Tourist Bureau in Wellington. He was a... very special person in my life, apart from art he was a virtuoso of the violin, having been Guest Soloist and First Violin with the N.Z Philharmonic Orchestra for the annual 'Messiah'. He was 16 years of age. During the second world war he enlisted with the N.Z Air Force and became a pilot. He excelled in math, particularly trigonometry, vital of course to navigation. He was chosen with ten others to join the Fleet Air Arm in England. He gained his wings as a carrier based Spitfire pilot, having done most of his training in Canada. On leave to the U.S he met and married Luella, they had a son also called Donald. My brother did not come home from the war, he was killed in his Spitfire, somewhere in Cornwall in England. He was buried at Winchester Cathedral War Cemetery. He had been on a training session, strafing and bombing. He ran out of fuel and had to ditch. Cornwall is renowned for its farmland with briar hedges separating the fields. The farmer and his wife watched the Spitfire coming in, the propeller at rest and undercarriage still up, making a perfect glide for an open field with a briar hedge still to pass over. What Donald was unable to see was a cast iron pig trough on the other side of the hedge, gratefully he did not suffer. Read More