Donald Anderson Harkness

Donald Anderson Harkness was a Warrant Officer in the Royal New Zealand Air Force, service number NZ411400. DigitalNZ’s Auckland Museum Cenotaph record gives his birth date as 16 January 1916, death date as 23 July 1944, place of death as the Mediterranean, and records the DFC among his decorations. The FromThePage Auckland Museum transcription also identifies him as Warrant Officer Donald Anderson Harkness, DFC. CWGC records him as aged 28 and commemorated on the Malta Memorial, which fits a Mediterranean loss with no known grave. Gazette and RAFCommands records supply the official DFC publication trail. The web search did not reveal a service-number-matched aircraft or crew page, so this biography stops short of naming an aircraft. The supported account is that Harkness was a decorated RNZAF warrant officer, lost in the Mediterranean theatre in July 1944 and commemorated at Malta. These records tie the same name to the same service number, award trail and casualty date, reducing the risk of confusing him with another airman of similar name.