Gordan Grant Jillett (Known as Grant) was born in New Plymouth 9 September 1917, the son of John Robert and Dinah Maud Jillett. He was the youngest of three brothers.
After being educated at New Plymouth Boy's High School, he studied motor engineering and navigation at the New Plymouth Technical College. He was keen rugby player, surfer and wrestler.
He was working as a motor mechanic when he enlisted in the RNZAF as a pilot in 1940 and began his initial training in New Zealand. Later that same year he was sent to England for training.
He went on to fly the Vickers Wellesley light bomber with the 218 Squadron and flew in operations over both Germany and France.
Grant and his crew were presumed to have died after being lost over the North Sea after completing a raid over Germany on 21 June 1941. Grant was 22.
A letter he wrote to his parents, to be sent if he was killed during the war, was published after his death in June 1942 in the New Plymouth Boy's High School magazine, The Taranakian. In it he thanked his parents for all they had done for him; “Very often your unselfishness has not been appreciated at the time and it is only now that I realise how you yourselves have unstintingly gone without in order that I might have things. My only regret is that it is now too late to repay you.” The letter is printed in full in Lest We Forget by Jack West, p.202.
His name is commemorated on the Runnymeade War Memorial, England.
Books
Lest We Forget by Jack West, p. 201-2
Please do not reproduce these images without permission from Puke Ariki.
Contact us for more information or you can order images online here.
