BOMBING RAIDS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 63, Issue 172, 3 May 1943, Page 4

BOMBING RAIDS

NEW ZEALANDERS IN STIRLINGS.

FINE REPUTATION GAINED TOLL BY GERMAN DEFENCES (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright.) LONDON, May 1.

The New Zealand Stirling (75) Squadron lias taken part in all the big raids oi' recent months, continuing the fine reputation built up from .the earliest days of the war. Duisberg, Essen, Munich, Nuremberg, Kiel, Lorient, St. Nazaire recent raids which caused heavy destruction and growing consternation throughout Germany—in all these the 75 Squadron lias taken a full part. These raids have not been carried out without losses and concentrated German defences have taken a toll. The squadron has now had six commanding officers, Air Commodore M. W. Buckley, Wing Commander C. E. Kay, Group Captain E. G. Olsen, two Englishmen and a Scot. It lost one English and one Scot commander in operations. They were both posted missing and nothing has been heard of them since. The squadroon is now commanded by an Englishman, Wing Commander G. E. Lane, D.F.C. German night fighters continue to be one of the chief sources of danger to the crews, who have a healthy respect for them. Pilot Officer Peter Buck, aged 19, of Wanganui, had an unpleasant experience with a night fighter during his twenty-sixth operation. It was in last week’s heavy attack against Duisberg. He was running up to bomb when he heard “woomf” under his tail. He thought it was flak, and callecj up the rear gunner. He received no answer —for the gunner was mortally wounded by fire from a night fighter, which no mejnber of the crew had sighted. About 20 seconds later, tracers rushed past the aircraft, also hitting both main planes and the top turret. Pilot Officer Buck found that the tail rudder was not answering and realised its controls had gone. He smelt burning so immediately jettisoned his incendiaries'. They evidently caught on fire, for the crew saw them cascading down alight. He also jettisoned his bombs. Aircraft Held on Course. b Pilot Officer Buck said: “Without rudder control it was difficult to turn the aircraft. We seemed to be Ju a right-hand spiral turn for hours. We fell from 15,000 to 12,000 feet, Both I and the second pilot, who was an Englishman had to use all our strength to hold the aircraft (Stirlings weigh about 35 tons fully loaded), but we managed to set off for England. Just after we turned for home, the starboard motor packed up— the oil pipes had been cut by bullets. We began losing height steadily. I did not know —the crew apparently did not tell me purposely—but my rear gunner was badly wounded. He was taken out dying from the turret and given morphia but he died as we were crossing the English coast. I thought at one time we would have a crash in the Channel, as we kept losing height and the Stirling kept turning to starboard. Th wounded Canadian wireless operator sent out' an S.O.S. and the crew jettisoned everything movable in order to lighten the aircraft. Fortunately we managed to reach our home base safely.” Pilot Officer Buck crash-landed perfectly, he having stood up to the , ordeal magnificently. j

Low Level Approaches.

A feature of several of the squadron’s recent raids has been the lowlevel flying while ep route to targets. Ah aircraft captained by Pilot Officer D. L. Thompson, of Auckland, whose wireless operator is Sergeant Roy Jenkins, of Matamata, made low-level approaches! to Mannheim, Rostock, Stuttgart, and Bordeaux. While on route to Mannheim they were held for 15 minutes by a cone of searchlights and were holed in several places while flying to Rostock. Pilot Officer Thompson flew at 100 feet for part of the trip before climbing to bomb and with an aircraft, captained by Pilot Officer J. M. Bailey, of Hunterville (whose crew includes Flying Officer O. F. Ormerod, of Gisborne, and Sergeant B. Y. Hoise, of Manaia) acted as pathfinders for the remainder of the squadron.

New Zealanders form a fairly substantial proportion of the squadron’s personnel, but except for two fighter squadrons, these New Zealand squadrons often have a greater percentage of Britishers, Canadians, Australians and Scots. For a time Squadron 75 had a Hindu navigator, also a Jamaican. Flight Lieutenant F. A. Andrews (Auckland) has returned for a second tour with the 75. Squadron Leader R. Broadbent (Auckland), who carried out 37 raids, is the flight commander. Squadron Leader G. M. Allcock, D.F.C., another flight commander, has completed a tour and will shortly be transferred. Flight Sergeant G. K. Samson (Wellington) is among the squadron’s members entitled to wear the emblem of the Goldfish Club. It includes a winged fish and, to become eligible for membership it is necessary to make a forced landing on the sea and be picked up.