ARTILLERY UNIT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 305, 26 December 1944, Page 4

ARTILLERY UNIT

USE OF ROBOT BOMB WHAT POLISH ACE ENVISIONS Special. NEW YORK. Robot bombs as a sort of mobile artillery was envisioned to-day by Lieutenant-Colonel Stanislaw Skalski, top ace of the Polish Air Forces, in an interview. "Robot bombs could be used as long-range artillery because they require fewer men and have greater speed," Colonel Skalski said. He and other Polish flyers in England accounted for 200 robots. "The best tactic is to get 2000 ft above them in a fighter plane and dive down, thus gaining great speed," the colonel declared. "You jump on them from the air, and get as close as possible, preferably 150 yards, before shooting. No closer. Many fighter pilots were killed because they went too close: If the bomb has been hit and slowed up, you can tip it with your wing from underneath to send it down." Veteran of 250 missions during which he shot down 18 Germans and was shot down twice himself, Colnel Skalski told how it felt to hurtle 8000 ft through space before opening a parachute. "It was in 1940 during the Battle of Britain. I had just shot down a Messerschmitt 109 when I noticed some Germans following me. How many? You don't stop to count. My gasoline tank exploded and the whole plane was aflame. So was I. I jumped clear, but couldn't open the parachute until I made sure the flames on me were put out. So I fell from 12,000 ft to 4000 ft before I opened my parachute. That put the flames out." Colonel Skalski said he never lost consciousness during the fall. "I landed about 100 yards from the water on the coast between Dover and Folkestone. Some townspeople, a policman and others, saw me. At first they thought I was German because of my accent, but soon they saw my Polish insignia." He spent six weeks in a hospital recovering from burns on his face, legs and hands. Colonel Skalski joined the Polish Air Force in 1935. In October, 1939, he escaped from Poland by way of Syria and Marseilles. In 1940 he joined the Polish Air Force in London. Ho is leaving for Fort Leavenworth. Kan., to study United States Air Force organisation and tactics, in a three-month course.—Auckland Star and N.A.N. A.