Ron Hermanns Obituary: New Zealand’s oldest living veteran, Ron Hermanns, has sadly passed away at the age of 109. Ron joined the New Zealand Territorial Air Force in 1937 as an aircraft rigger. He moved onto the RNZAF when WWII started. A brave and valiant man, he was the recipient of many service medals and loved spending time in his workshop and garden. RIP Ron.
InsideEko is yet to confirm Ron Hermanns’s cause of death as no health issues or other causes of death have been learned to be associated with the passing.
It is with sadness that we announce the passing of Ron Hermanns, a Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) veteran of the Second World War and New Zealand’s oldest person. Mr Hermanns passed away on Monday, just three weeks from his 110th birthday.
Born in Canada on 25 September 1911, he moved with his family to New Zealand in 1914, settling in Wellington. He joined the New Zealand Territorial Air Force in 1937 as an aircraft rigger, transferring to full-time RNZAF service when war broke out in 1939.
Initially stationed in New Zealand, he had two overseas postings to the Pacific, first to Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) in 1943, where he spent 12 months servicing the RNZAF’s Kittyhawk fighter aircraft. This was followed by a second tour to Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands in 1945, when he spent a further five months maintaining Lockheed Ventura bombers.
📷: Mr Hermanns standing with a cut-out figure of his younger self at the Air Force Museum of New Zealand in 2019.
Tributes To Ron Hermanns
Across social media users, timelines are statements that show respect, admiration, and gratitude towards Hermanns people mourn the passing.
Today we farewell a former Air Force veteran and the country’s oldest person, Ron Hermanns, who died on Monday aged 109. Mr Hermanns joined the New Zealand Territorial Air Force in 1937 as an aircraft rigger, transferring to full-time RNZAF service in 1939, at the start of World War II. He had two overseas postings during the war, both in the Pacific. The first was to Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) in 1943, where he spent 12 months servicing the Air Force’s Kittyhawk fighter aircraft.
This was followed by a second tour to Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands in 1945, when he spent a further five months maintaining Lockheed Ventura bombers. In 2010, aged 98, Mr Hermanns was finally presented with his military service medals by the then Deputy Chief of Air Force, Air Commodore Gavin Howse, during a service at the Air Force Museum of New Zealand, in Christchurch. We salute you sir.
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