Great War Stories 1 - Keith Caldwell

Television (Full Length Episode) – 2014

“We’ve chosen someone Hollywood would call an action hero” says Hilary Barry, as she introduces this TV item recalling Kiwi experiences in World War I. The subject is decorated flying ace Keith Caldwell, who left for England in 1916 to join the RAF with only eight hours training (which he’d paid for himself). He became one of the most successful pilots on the Western Front, leading ‘Tiger Squadron’. The short, which screened during 3 News, recounts the dogfights and close escapes that Caldwell negotiated with “splendid skill and fearlessness”.

Most men would’ve become unnerved and paralysed with fear, and resigned themselves to their fate. Not so this tough son of Auckland.
– A flying officer colleague writes on one of Caldwell's close escapes