James Ward was the first New Zealand airman to win the VC. The Whanganui-born schoolteacher joined the RNZAF in July 1940 and left for Great Britain to serve with the RAF after completing his pilot training. He won his VC while returning from a raid on the German city of Münster on 7 July 1941. When his Vickers Wellington bomber was set alight by an enemy fighter plane, Ward climbed out onto the burning wing (several thousand feet in the air) and smothered the fire. Although he was unable to block the leaking petrol pipe that was feeding it, the fire eventually burnt itself out and the badly damaged bomber limped back to base. Two months later, Ward was killed when he remained at the controls of his burning aircraft after it was hit by flak over Hamburg.