WITH THE DESERT AIR FORCE

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24366, 19 September 1944, Page 4

WITH THE DESERT AIR FORCE

WELLINGTON OFFICER’S EXPERIENCES OLDEST PILOT OP SQUADRON (Official War Correspondent N.ZJS.P.) ADRIATIC COAST, Sept, 15. The distinction of being the oldest pilot of his squadron, and one of the oldest of the whole Desert Air Force, belongs to a New Zealander, Flying Officer R. H, Newton, of Wellington, who is now flying Mustangs in support of the Bth Army in its drive up the Adriatic coast. ' Flying Officer Newton, who left New Zealand in August, 1941, as a sergeant, went to England for further training,, and when that was completed was posted direct to the Shark Squadron of the Desert Air Force, with which he has done the whole of his operational flying. He has now been with the .squadron more than two years. It was at Gambut, in May, 1942, during the retreat to El Alamein, that Flying Officer Newton joined the Shark Squadron, so-called through the row of sharks’ teeth and eye painted on the nose of their fighters, and since that time he has had his share of lively experiences.. Pilots of the squadron point out. incidentally, that the shark device was used by them before being adopted by General Chennault’s Tigers in China. ’ Landed In Tobroh Times have changed for the pilots of the Desert Air Force, because they now strike very little enemy opposition in the air, but when Flying Officer Newton first joined them, and they were attacking aerodromes in the desert behind the enemy lines, they could always be sure there would be a good bag of Huns waiting for them. It was on one such flight, soon after he joined the squadron, that Flying Officer Newton was shot down and crash-landed within ■ the Tobruk fortress, then surrounded by the enemy. He managed to hitch-hike back to his base in good order for further flying. Within the last two months he found himself in a ticklish situation when, on returning from a sortie over enemy territory in northern Italy, he found that a bomb he had not found a target for had become unsafe, so. that if he landed and the bomb had come off the rack, both his aircraft and himself would have been blown to pieces. “I reported the position to the ground,” he said, “and after cruising round for some time I was instructed to drop the aircraft in the sea and bail out. So I then flew out a little way over the Adriatic, and stepped over the side. I landed safely on the shore, and once again hitch-hiked home.” A great deal of Flying Officer Newton’s flying has been done in close support of troops of the Bth Army, which demands special ability in divebombing and strafing if it is to be effective. It was at El Hamma, during the Tunisian campaign, that really close support of ground troops was undertaken by the Desert Air Force. Their particular job in that battle was to bomb German 88-millimetre guns, a formidable all-purpose weapon, and to strafe right down a line designated by artillery smoke within 500 or 600 yards of our forward troops. “Cabrank Flying” “It was a new experience then,” Flying Officer, Newton told me, “but now we are doing it every day and the system called ‘cabrank’ has been evolved to enable us to get right on even the smallest target. We cruise over the tsrget area, waiting in the cabrank, as it were, and as each pilot’s turn comes a forward observation post officer on the ground gives a map reference and other detail, from which we can identify enemy gun , positions, headquarters, or whatever it is, and deal with it most effectively.” An idea of the hsvoc being wrought by our aircraft over German communications may be gained from the laconic account given by Flying Officer Newton of a recent day’s operations. “We went right up to the north of Italy, near Trieste,” he said, “where we bombed and sank a "2000-ton ship. While we were there, incidentally, we saw the liner Rex, on her side and on fire after bombing the previous day. Turning inland, we shot up 13 locomotives, destroyed four aircraft on the ground, and started a very big fire in a station yard. The same day we shot down a Ju 88. I bagged a Ju 52, a big troop transport, on the ground, arid wtf also left three Savoia 79’s burning on the ground.” Flying Officer Newton took part in the invasion of -the south of France when his squadron had the task of escorting gliders to protect them from ground fire. “It was an amazing sight,” he said, “to see mile after mile of gliders coming in steadily to land the invading troops, and we were able to watch the show comfortably, as only one gun was firing from the ground.*’