Ernestine Graham HUME M.B.E.
Known as Lassie

Service Number: W2530, then 70341
RNZAF Trade: Unknown originally, then a Staff Officer in the WRNZAF
Date of Enlistment: 24th of January 1942
Date of Demob: 31st of December 1962
Rank Achieved: Squadron Officer
Flying Hours: Nil Known
Operational Sorties: Nil

Date of Birth: 18th of November 1909, at Hamilton
Personal Details: It seems that Lassie had previously lived with her parents, William Hamilton Hume and Hilda Herberta Blanche Hume, at at Trevellyn in Hamilton, and then Te Akau (which is in the North Waikato region, west of Glen Murray). She attended Sonning School in Hamilton.

Sometime after 1938 she and Maisie Henry both moved from Te Akau to Cambridge, and it was from here that they joined the WAAF together.

It was reported in the New Zealand Observer on the 4th of February 1942 that Lassie had left Cambridge to join the WAAF. It stated that she and fellow new WAAF Maisie Henry had been given some rousing farewell parties before they left

Service Details: Lassie joined the WAAF at RNZAF Station Whenuapai on the 24th of January 1942. I am not sure what role she played initially in the WAAF but she stayed in the Air Force post-war and rose in rank to Squadron Officer in overall charge of what was by this time renamed the WRNZAF, or Womens' Royal New Zealand Air Force at RNZAF Station Whenuapai, She later moved to work at RNZAF Headquarters in Wellington.

In the 1961 Queen's Birthday Honours, Lassie was awarded the MBE (Military Division) for her distinguished service to the RNZAF and WRNZAF. She left the WRNZAF on the last day of 1962.

Date of Death: 15th of October 1976, in Auckland
Ashes Scattered:

Connection with Cambridge: Lassie lived in Cambridge sometime between 1938 and January 1942.

Thanks To: Errol Martyn for his valued assistance and to Jan Habberfield-Short for additional information and the images of Lassie on this page.

Above: Lassie Hume at a bach at Hatepe, Lake Taupo (photo via Jan Habberfield-Short).

Above: Lassie Hume (right) and her cousin Dorothy Philpot, at Dorothy's home in Cambridge. (photo via Jan Habberfield-Short).

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