Mackie interviews

Evan Mackie recounts his life from a modest childhood in Waihī through wartime service and a post-war electrical career. He describes growing up in a miner's cottage, attending local schools, leaving during the Depression, and taking farm and casual work before studying at the Waihī School of Mines and gaining an electrical apprenticeship with the Martha Gold Mining Company. He reflects on Depression-era resourcefulness, his aptitude for mathematics and machinery, and outdoor pursuits such as fishing and coastal tramping.

With war approaching, Mackie completed an RNZAF correspondence course and joined the Air Force in January 1941 as a qualified electrical wireman. Most of the interview covers his flight training in New Zealand, Canada and Britain, and his operational career flying Spitfires and Hawker Tempests. He discusses combat in the Channel area, North Africa, Sicily, Italy and northwest Europe; command of Nos. 243, 92 and 80 Squadrons and, later, No. 122 Wing; aerial victories, ground attacks, accidents, near misses, and the realities of fighter combat. Throughout, he emphasises experience, judgement and luck rather than romantic notions of aerial warfare.

The interview concludes with the end of the war, Staff College, his decision not to pursue a permanent Air Force career, and his return to New Zealand. Seeking work focused on reconstruction rather than destruction, he worked for power boards and as an electrical inspector.