PERILOUS TRIP

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 116, 19 May 1941, Page 7

PERILOUS TRIP

_« ; — DAMAGED PLANE

HOME FROM HELIGOLAND

RUGBY, May 16. An exciting ana perilous journey, home in a damaged aeroplane aftei?; the recent attack in daylight on Heli-^ goland was described in a broadcast by a sergeant pilot. After referring to the clockwork precision of the attack, he said:

"We did not hang about longer than we had to and, with all that anti-air-craft fire about, I was taking violent evasive action almost at sea level. , I do not know whether a burst above the aircraft pushed me down, or whether a very high wave caught us, f but suddenly the left side of the air-' craft was covered by a whirling mass of white foam, and I knew that the port airscrew had struck the sea and was churning it up. With all my strength I pulled back the control column.

"Hitting the sea must have pulled us round, for I found that we were heading back to the guns on the island. "We turned west again, keeping fairly level at 100 ft. The port airscrew was useless, having been badly bent when it hit the sea.

"Then a small but powerfully-armed German convoy suddenly appeared out of the mist and fired at us. We were a pretty lame duck, but we turned and managed to get away." The pilot proceeded to describe how, after he had sent the first distress signal, the useless port airscrew dropped off and the remaining engine began to vibrate so badly that he had to stop climbing. "So long as we stayed in the air," he said, "there were two courses open to us-i-either to aive the engine an extra boost and risk tearing it to bits with vibration, or jog along and slowly sink. I decided to climb and, as I did so, sent out another distress signal." The plane was about 40 miles from the coast and night was coming on, but eventually England was reached and the plane, despite a badly-damaged undercarriage, made a .safe landing.— 8.0. W.

SEAMEN ROUNDED UP

WASHINGTON, May 17,

The Immigration Service announced that hundreds of Federal agents in at least nine cities are taking into custody an undetermined number of foreign seamen, believed to be mostly Italians and Germans, 4 charged with overstaying their sixty-day leave in the United States. The cities are New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. This is described as a continuation of the round-up of May 7, when 150 Germans were taken into custody.—U.P.A.

Bj special arrangement Renter's <vorld service In addition -to oilier special sources of information is used tn the compilation of tha oversea? Intelllsence published in this issue, and all rights therein in Australia and .New Zealand aro reserved.