GOOD STIRRING UP.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 192, 14 August 1940, Page 10

GOOD STIRRING UP.

RAIDS ON ITALIANS. ACTIVITY BY THE R.A.F. WELLINGTON, this day. "The E.A.F. round these parts have been giving Musso's boys a good stirring up," says a letter received this week by his parents from a New Zealand pilot officer serving in Egypt with a Sunderland flying-boat squadron of the Soyal Air Force. "All the commands, bomber, .fighter and ourselves have been busy night and day for the last ten days, and nobody has a very high opinion of the spaghetti-eaters as fighters. I've run across the odd fighter on patrol, but no action from one. Their anti-aircraft fire is not particularly good, and at the moment is easy to avoid. "We had a sticky job a week ago that nearly got us into "trouble," he- contiLues. "We were over Tobruk, an Italian base in Libya for Navy and Air Force, having a reconnaissance at dawn —one Sunderland only. I came over the harbour and saw what I wanted to see, then everything opened fire, battleships and shore batteries. That drove us off for a while, but we came back for a final look. Terrific Noise. "Just turning away when one of the gunners yelled that fighters were under our tail. We were all at action stations, tail-gunner with his Brownings, port and starboard gunners, and front gunner with a pilot to direct the fire through the top hatch, all in touch by microphones. No sooner had he shouted, than there was a hail of bullets through us. They were using cannons, too, and the noise of the bullets rattling round the hull and the explosions of their cannon shots was terrific. "We dived for the deck immediately while the five Fiat fighters climbed for another shot. We shot one down as he turned away. We drew away in the dive, but as soon as we were tearing along just above the waves they caught us asain and began attacking. By this time we had them weighed up, and we , easily avoided their dives. Actually, except for the initial attack, there were very few hits registered on us. We finall v drove three off. but one persistent fellow followed us for 20 miles out to sea before he gave up, or was driven off. "Then we surveyed the damage. No one was hit. miracle as it was, but three petrol tanks had been hit in the first attack, and petrol was spurting everywhere. By usincr his gas ma*k as a protector, one of the crew crawled into the wing and Mocked up one .holed tank with plasticene, but the others we couldn't stop, as the holes were through the bottom. We lost 700 gallons through these tanks, but finally limped into our base with a few gallons left, and ran the aircraft straight up the slip for repairs. "Pretty Well Peppered." "The cannons had made a mess of the hull, the flaps, floats, petrol tanks and rudder, and. in fact, we were pretty well peppered all over. We were exceedinglv lucky that their first attack wasn't the last, but we certainly learnt a lot from the ensasenient. It was the first time any of the squadron had been in action, and our gunners will certaiulv benefit by it." The pilot officer from whose letter the above extracts have been taken is a Wellington man, both of whose parents reside in the capital. He has two brothers, one of whom is serving with the Australian Air Force and the other the New Zealand Air Force.