LANDING GLIDER FORCES

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24279, 9 June 1944, Page 5

LANDING GLIDER FORCES

“An Unforgettable Sight”

IMPRESSIONS OF N.Z. PILOT (Special Correspondent N!z.P.A.)

(Rec, 7 p.m.) , LONDON, June 7. "It was one of the most, amazing sights I have seen in my life," said Wing Commander W. V. C. Compton. D.5.0., D.F.C. and Bar, of Auckland, in referring to the glider train which landed in France last evening. “On an advanced airfield in South England we had seen these glidet’S towed by bombers stretching right across the sky. You could watch them disappearing towards France in pne direction, and in the other direction you could see them coming for miles. They looked for' all the world like a great flock of giant migrating birds.” That sight was impressive enough, but Wing Commander Compton, who was leading a wing of Fighting French squadrons flying Spitfires, as a fighter escort, was able to fly with them all the way to Trance ana see them land. He said he saw gliders and bombers flying roughly four abreast, stretched for 40 miles, and as they -moved across the Channel fighters patrolled up and down. Then, while they were landing the .fighters circled over them in case the Luftwaffe should belatedly wake up that day, but it didn’t. As tire aircraft approached the area where they were to land, tow ropes were released, and the gliders turned to the left, and banked steeply for the fields below. Meanwhile the bombers turned to the right, descended sharply towards the sea, and then made off for England. It was, according to Wing Commander Compton, "just like an exercise" with the fighters overhead and the gliders and bombers wheeling and descending. The scene, he said, resembled a giant swarm of bees. It was the fighter pilots, who had the best view. Inland, over France, was a dark bank of clouds shrouding the land, but the sun, sinking behind them, shone great shafts of yellowy lights over the whole scene. Below the green sea was studded with black dots of boats, with white pimples of foam, as the boats nosed towards the shore. Six great fires were burning at different points along the beach, and from them rose pillars of smoke, dirty back at Hie base and becoming greyish white as they rose higher and higher into the sky. / "Supplies Dropped By Parachute” Now and again, Wing Commander Compton said, bombers would belch forth a bunch of coloured parachutes, like small Iceland poppies. They were white, rod, or green, according to the different supplies they were dropping for the troops. In the landing space could be seen literally a mass of packed black gliders until it seemed there could be no room for more, but new arrivals swept down gracefully and found a place to land, and immediately they stopped grouos of tiny figures could be seen bolting from 1 them to take up positions, For the fighter pilots, the fact that they could hear nothing through their helmets, added a slight eeriness to the scene which was staged below them. Sometimes their attention would be directed to an occasional glider, which bounced along the road until it came to rest in trees, or it would be directed to warships bombarding enemy positions inland. Thbre was a light flak post, which was inclined to worry the gliders, so Wing Commander Compton’s leading section of four Spitfires swept down and shot it up with cannon. It streamed black smoko, but no more flak spouted up. In addition, there was a formation of Marauder bombers, which moved straight across the sky on the outskirts of the swarming aircraft to bomb a target inland. "It was a sight I will never forget as long as I live,” said Wing Commander Compton. One of the French pilots in his section. who is a former French journalist on the Paris "Soir." said: ’ll was a sight impossible to describe in writing. It went fnrlher than imagination can do.”