"After being there in Leeds for a few years, Grandpa at last found skilled employment in what I think must have been a new firm - called De Havillands. It was a new urban engineering firm that was starting to make, around about the time of the beginning of the First World War, aircraft for the new Royal Flying Corps, in Britain. Grandpa as a designer was very excited to help in this process, and as someone who had extraordinary knowledge and skills in dealing with laminated wood products, he designed and helped make aircraft propellers for De Havillands for the Royal Flying Corps."

"Grandpa Michael, who had retired, was enjoying life in this interesting 100 years' young city [Wellington]. Suddenly one day - during the war - he received very official letter, which had an unusual mark on the envelope outside, indicating that it was from the Governor-General's office, and he is the senior representative of the Queen in New Zealand! Grandpa opened the letter, and we all read this extraordinary communication. It stated that from the records, the New Zealand branch of De Havillands had discovered that Grandpa had been employed by them in the First World War in Leeds, on propeller design work. There was now - in the middle of this new war - a secret project to go ahead on the development in Australia and New Zealand of a special new aircraft (namely to be the prototype of the 'Australasian Mosquito'), which was to be all wooden, including wooden propellers! There were no longer designers available who could design and make wooden propellers. Yet it was known that Grandpa - who had these skills - was alive, and was in New Zealand, so they would welcome it if he would come out of retirement, and help the war effort [...] Grandpa came out of retirement and spent what must have been a year or two in this training and supervisory task at De Havillands Aircraft Factory, at Rongotai, in Wellington. Thus Grandpa aided the Australasian version of the Mosquito Aircraft, which was built, and was used in the Pacific War, just as the UK version of the plane was used in the European War."