"TERROR TO THE NAZIS"

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 75, 29 March 1940, Page 6

"TERROR TO THE NAZIS"

-. . ♦ ■ ■ When knighthood was in flower, individuals could win battles. The battles, no doubt, were between comparatively small forces; they did not represent the clash of a million men, therefore the moral success of an Ivanhoe or a Richard I was not lost against the vast material background of a mass war. The individual combat stood out, in the tournament melee as well as on the actual field of these limited battles; and well might King John be warned by a message from France hinting the escape from capture of Richard, an # d couched in these terms; "Take heed to thyself, for the Devil is unloosed." That impression of a Devil unloosed is not conveyed to a modern enemy in a modern war by what W. S. Gilbert called a modern MajorGeneral; but, since modern war took to the air, providing new scope for the individual attacker, the stage is again set for the conquering airman who vanquishes foe after foe in single combat. The glitter of his, deeds and of his name is coveted by an enemy by whom he is feared for what he can do with his own two hands. Something of this revival of medieval prowess was witnessed in the last war, when the Germans had their Rich thofen and the British and the French also had "aces" whose names (like that of the New Zealander Caldwell) were names with which to conjure. Today the Nazis have disV covered, among the Devils unloosed, another New Zealander whose success in shooting down German aeroplanes ranks him at the moment crack "ace" of the R.A.F. Flying-Officer E. J. K&in, of Wellington, who attains "ace-ship" pn the |all of a fifth victim, has twice himself saved his own life by using his parachute. He Ibas achieved "a record for any fighter pilot of the present war," and his exploits will electrify the Allied countries, including his own.