SHOT BY NAZIS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 126, 30 May 1944, Page 4

SHOT BY NAZIS

AUSTRALIAN FLYERS

PRISON CAMP HORROR

(0 .c.) SYDNEY, May 26. Four of the Allied airmen prisoners who are reported to have been shot by the Germans after escaping were Australians and three of them were from New South Wales. These three were Warrant-Officer A. H Hake, of Sydney; Flight-Lieu-tenant Kierath, of Narromine,_ and Squadron-Leader J. E. A. Williams, D.F.C., of Mosman (Sydney). Hake was educated at Sydney Technical College and was a draughtsman. He enlisted in Janu ary, 1941. His wife, who is only 25, received a letter from him the a y the executions were announced, bne said, "He told me m this letter, dated February, that he was busy with some invention. He was always in venting things. _ He had planned to I run his own air conditioning Pl. a m after the war. He was an electrical engineer. I gave up my job early this year because I hoped that my husband would be released soon. Williams went to England at tne end of 1937 to join the R AF. and was on loan to the R.A.A.F. He won his D.F.C. for shooting down two Stukas in the Middle East. He was captured in October, 1942, when a machine-gun bullet hit his engine and forced him down. Kierath was a schoolmate of Williams at Shore, one of Sydney s leading grammar schools, and the two of them were again room mates in the German prison camp. Kierath was a bank clerk. He was captured when he baled out off Cape Bon m the final stages of the Tunisian campaign. He was picked up by a German rescue boat about five miles from the shore and taken to a German hospital in Tunis. Later he was transported by ship to Sicily. The fourth Australian shot by the Germans, Squadron-Leader James Catanach, D.F.C., belonged to Melbourne. He was educated at Geelong Grammar School and was a member of his father's firm, Catanach's, jewellers. He enlisted in January, 1940, at the age of 18, and arrived in England in 1941. He was a squadron-leader before his twentyfirst birthday. The D.F.C. was awarded to him in 1942 for raids on targets in Germany.