THE KIEL EXPLOIT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 246, 18 October 1939, Page 5

THE KIEL EXPLOIT.

FIRST BOMB DOWN.

" CLEAN INTO POCKET BATTLESHIP."

YOUNG AIRMAN'S STORY.

(Special.—By Air Mail.)

LONDON, September 23

I Nineteen-year-old John Oscar Smith, the aircraftsman flying observer who | was the first man to drop a bomb on Germany in the present war, described

in a letter to his parents his exploit in the Kiel Canal raid.

| "I was -in the leading machine of 10 which tlew over the Kiel Canal," he wrote. "We had a rare scrap, and J quite enjoyed it. We put a bomb clean into the middle of the Admiral Graf Spec, Germany's pocket battleship.

"I am sorry to say we spoiled all the sailors' underpants which were hanging out on the deck. 1 was the first to bomb Germany in this war. When we returned we got a rousing reception when they heard we were the "Kiel bovs.' "

"Oscar has always been like that," said his mother, commenting on the letter. "Always, in no matter what he undertakes, he has supreme confidence, and somehow he instills that confidence into us. I am never afraid for Oscar.

"Oscar," she continued, "is an old Wolverhampton Grammar School boy. His whole heart was in the services, and he went straight from school into the Air Force."