LIGHTING UP THE SKIES

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 36, 6 November 1943, Page 4

LIGHTING UP THE SKIES

Anti-Aircraft Exercise * GOOD TEAM WORK BY MEN AND WOMEN

By night the tracer bullets flashing upward to the sky like lightning in reverse, to guide the way for shells from fast-fir-ing Bofors guns toward the aircrafttowed drogue held in crossbeams of searchlights! by Jay the roar of 3.7 anti-air craft guns, shaking the ground for hundreds of yards around and then on explosion leaving their neat balls of smoke in perfect line across the sky, each approximately at the distance the attacked drogue had travelled in between shots; and behind the big guns at night the flash of firing from the breech, the sweating faces of the gun loaders and the mild belch of smoke. These are some impressions of the air battle practice of regimental anti-aircraft units of the Central Military District, carried out on a west coast beach this week. So much for the spectacular side. But what made possible good shooting of the guns? With the big ones, it was nearly 60 men and women a battery, operating predictors, spotters, height-finders, the guns ; themselves (men only), and command post, all working as one to get as near as possible to that standard of perfection which comes with the combination of scientific equipment and the human mind and hand. • Absolute perfection there is not. I” there was then no raiding plane, unless on a suicide mission, could ride the skies in safety. But there was sufficient skill displayed in these exercises to indicate that New Zealand anti-aircraft units could make thangs uncomfortable for hostile aircraft.

The W.A.A.O.’s deserve special mention. They looked the part, sun-tanned in their shorts and blouses from a few days on the coa£i, were keen and alert, and when it came to the actual operations, there was no sense of men and women fighters as separate entities, but. just a combination working toward a single purpose. Though there is much scientific equipment in an anti-aircraft show, and, in common with, all artillery work, the need tq use the human brain reckoner swift and sure, much honest sweat of brow and body is expended. Take the loaders on the big guns, with which a well-drilled crew can fire 12 rounds a minute, under ideal conditions, and on average, eight to 10. There are two loaders to a gun. They handle the shells in turn aud each shell weighs just on 501 b., so that in a 10-rounds a minute shoot they handle 2501 b. This was hard work in the heat that by day has obtained on the beach area where the exercise is being held. The job of each, in turn, is to pick up a shell, set it, ram it in by hand, fire the gun, and then double back to the side of the gun for another shell. At 10 rounds a minute, that allows six seconds for each firing operation. A point worth making about the antiaircraft equipment seen in action at this exercise is that it is ss up-to-date as that which operates in Britain, where air attack is not just something to be prepared for, but an actual and regular occurrence. • The predictors are the eyes of the guns. They work out the gunnery problems, provide the necessary data, hearing and angle, all of which are transmitted electrically to the guns. The drogue which is used as a target for these exercises is a long stocking-like attachment, 15 to 18in. in diameter an<L nine to 12 feet long, towed on a 2000 yd. line by an R.N.Z.A.F. aircraft. It is harder to hit than an actual plane and shell fragments can pierce it without destroying it as a target. On a previous shoot in the Wellington district one crew cut the rope with a shell, and on the night, shoot this week the drogue was hit twice.