BOMBER ABLAZE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 42, 19 February 1942, Page 8

BOMBER ABLAZE

AMAZING FLIGHT

LANDING IN THE SEA

LONDdN,:Dec."I9.

A New Zealand sergeant pilot, D. A. S. Hamilton (Napier), recently shared with the English crew of a Wellington bomber one of the most amazing flights, yet recorded in this war. After; bombing Berlin on the night of November 7, when 37 bombers were reported missing, their aeroplane was hit by flak, and incendiary bombs, which had been kept for an alternative target, were set alight.

For three hours the airmen flew in a blazing bomber, making every effort to put out the flames. They roared over France at 1000 feet, the fire still raging,' while German flak gunners blazed at them and shells could be heard crumping all round them. They knew that there was no hope of reaching England. But they kept on; Their reason, they said afterwards, was that they all had a week's leave due to them, and they were not going to miss that!

The Wellington crashed into the sea and broke up into three pieces about 20 miles from Ramsgate; It sank in 40 seconds. Every one of the six men in the crew escaped and scrambled into a dinghy. For three nights and two and a half days' they were in that small craft' Eventually they were washed up at Ventnor, numbed and frostbitten. Now they have all recovered.

"We dropped our bombs right over Berlin," said Sergeant Hamilton, "but held on to our incendiaries to use later. We were over Berlin for about half an hour and then we set off for Magdeburg, arriving there about threequarters of an hour later. Then we were hit and our troubles began. "I was standing at the astro dome keeping a look-out for fighters. One moment everything was quiet and as usual. The next moment there was a terrific explosion. I could see a great hole in front and io the left of my feet, and the plane was filled with smoke. The incendiaries were on fire, and the plane was blazing. We were hit, we decided afterwards, by the nose cap of the shell. "I had to rip off my helmet because I could neither see rior breathe? The smoke was like a thick fog. I clambered over the main spar—where the wings join up with the fuselage—and shouted to the navigator to tell the captain to let go the incendiaries.' He had already tried to let them go, but the release wouldn't work. "I grabbed hold of a fire extinguisher and then poured coffee and every bit of liquid I could find on the fiames It had no effect. . Most of the fabricon the starboard side burned away and that let in the wind to clear away some of the smoke. I grabbed the side curtains and tried to beat out the flames, but that wasn't much use either. • Eventually we managed to put out. the fire inside the plane, but the bomb racks were well alight. A TARGET OF FLAME. "All this time we were held by searchlights, and the Jerries must have been so satisfied at seeing us ablaze that they didn't bother to fire at us. Apparently they thought we would crash in flames. We flew on, getting lower and > lower.; . .Then the fabric between the starboard engine and the fuselage burned away, and that portion of starboard wing was just a skeleton of the geodetic work, shot through with flak holes. We switched the petrol from the starboard into the port tank, just in case it should catch fire, too. "Then the Jerries apparently changed their minds, and the flak started to come up at us again. Another shell burst directly under us and we were hit directly in the fuselage. That was the third hit we had taken. . "We flew on to France and came down to 1000 feet. The engines were flat .out, and it was all the skipper could do to keep at that height and get 115 m.p.h. All the way over France we could hear the flak crumpling round us." How the Jerries missed blowing us out of the sky we don't know." ...... . . . THE CRASH INTO THE SEA. "As time went on we knew we would never reach England. But there was a chance that we could get fairly close to it, crash into the sea, and then .paddle the- rest of the way in our dinghy. When the skipper looked round immediately after we'd been hit and saw the smoke he gave orders for us to jump by parachute. But the inter-corn. wasn't " working. We're just as glad now. "After nearly three hours fighting the flames we decided we might as well keep on. We all had a week's leave coming to us, and hell! we didn't want to come down over France and miss that!

"We left France just south of-Dun-'kirk, still at 1000 feet, below the clouds. It was very dark. We knew that we had to come down in the sea. I took out the astro dome and we all prepared for the crash. We, kept flying, going down slowly, until the motors coughed and packed up. It was the worst moment of the entire trip.'

"I've crashed on land, but after that dip into the sea, well, I'd much rather come down on land! One of our elevators had gone, and the skipper couldn't keep up the nose of the plane. She just nose-dived into the sea, broke up into three pieces, and sank in about 40 seconds. The port wing folded right back, and the aircraft broke in the middle.

"Fortunately, the empty petrol tanks kept the plane up for a few seconds, and in that time we all got out. I paddled back underwater to the astro dome, released the dinghy, which inflates automatically, and climbed out through the dome.

"The skipper's nose was split from top to bottom on the right side. I did everything' I could to stop it bleeding, and bound it up with bandages and plaster, but it dripped steadily for the next two days. In the end we fed him on half a bottle of neat Navy rum to keep his pecker up. And he was grand all the time, and didn't grouse once.

"We had six tins of biscuits, each with nine biscuits apiece, 200 malted milk tablets, two quart ■ bottles of water, three medicine bottles of rum, a dozen packets of chewing gum, and 31b of chocolate.

"We thought we might be picked up fairly soon, but when that hope passed we agreed on a daily ratibn."