BEHIND ENEMY LINES

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 3, 29 September 1943, Page 5

BEHIND ENEMY LINES

Italians Sheltered New Zealand Pilot

(By Telegraph.—Press Assn. —Copyright.) (Special Correspondent.) (Received September 28, 9 p.m.) LONDON, September 2(. The Algiers correspondent of the “Daily Express” relates ihow * Flight Sergeant Clifford Raeburn Piper, of Christchurch, a great-grandson of Raeburn, the famous Scots painter, spent a week behind German lines in Italy. Piper shot down an ME.109, but engine trouble obliged him to make a forced landing. He was stunned while landing and when he. recovered he found a number of Italians standing by. They wanted to take him to the wreckage of the Messerschmitt, saying “Your comrade,” but Piper replied “He’s no comrade of mine.” They sent him into a thicket till dark because the Germans were looking for him, Italians washed his bruises, gave him bread and water and promised to return at dusk. Piper waited for five hours and then dozed off. When he awoke he saw an Italian soldier, whom, he thought was going to take him prisoner till he noticed the Italian had an overcoat over his arm and a 'bottle of water in each hand. The soldier called out, “English pilot,” and Piper realized that the promise had been kept. He was given a pair of Italian array trousers and “a thing looking like a dinner jacket and an overcoat.” The Italian -took Piper to his home, where the former’s eparents gave him a meal. That night Piper watched Germans in track vehicles clattering through Hie village looking for him. He left the house next morning and spent four days under trees, the Italians bringing him food and water. Then he contacted Americans.