A WEEK'S RESPITE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 75, 29 March 1940, Page 7

A WEEK'S RESPITE

ACE-PILOT KAIN

AIRMEN HOPE HIS LUCK

WILL LAST

AN AMAZING ESCAPE

(By Telegraph—Press Association. —Copyright.} (Received March 29, 11.15. a.m.) LONDON, March 28. "| A correspondent of the Australian Associated Press with the advanced striking force of the R.A.F. says: "Today the New Zealand fighter, pilot Kain, the first ace of the Royal Air Force on the Western Front, is standing by ready to fly, but-he is under doctor's orders'not to fly for a week. The shrapnel wounds "he suffered from the guns of a Messerschmitt plane are healing rapidly, and he is little the worse for his brilliant part and amazing, escape in i Tuesday's great air battle. Everyl pilot on the Western' Front hopes that Kain's luck will last as long as his courage and daring. "Immediately the news came of Tuesday's encounter the first question asked was: 'Was "Cobber" there? How many did he get?' He got two, and nobody was.'S lrprised. They are expecting it now, in the messes and estaminets in TTrance. The ground staff 'wrote off' 'Cobber' when his blazing plane disappeared into a cloud bank but he turned up in the mess of.' tiny French village that night, his face brick-red from burning oil, his eyebrows singed, bandages on a leg and a hand, and his hair still streaked with oil. Three Messerschmitts and two (probably three) Dorniers have fallen to this tall and lean New Zealander, who left Wellington two years ago with a Civil A licence in his pocket." He was asked to come back again when he presented himself before a Royal Air Force medical board in England because at 19 he had outgrown his strength. Three months later' a medical board passed him as fit for training.. Ever since he has been carrying the Dominion banner across the German frontiers in grand style.