NIGHT RAID

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 67, 16 September 1943, Page 4

NIGHT RAID

ATTACK ON SOLOMONS

ENEMY OVER GUADALCANAL

(Official Correspondent.)

GUADALCANAL.

New Zealand airmen on Guadalcanal are, for the most part, now thoroughly used to enemy air raids. Some of the older inhabitants, who have been experiencing raids at the rate of perhaps half a dozen to 10 a month, are so used to the wailing siren that, no matter .what hour the attack may occur, they arrive promptly in the shelters, complete with steel helmet and respirator, but with a minimum of fuss and confusion.

It is the newcomer who is most impressed. New Zealand personnel is constantly changing, according to service requirements, and almost invariably, when the raiders appear, it is somebody's first experience. The old hands are tolerant and helpful, and the newcomer, after a week or so, finds himself, in the middle of a raid, more or less casually comparing the latest attack with the one of a few days earlier, and drawing comfort from his continued survival.

Yet months of raids —they occur without fail round full moon —have not lessened the hearty respect felt by one and all for Japanese bombs, nor have they decreased the precautions taken. The immunity of fee New Zealanders from air-raid injuries is due largely to the careful preparations made to meet raid hazards, and to the strictly enforced order that prevents the foolhardy from emerging from shelters during raids merely to satisfy their curiosity. As a recent order said: "To be injured uselessly is no assistance to the war effort."

Brilliantly clear nights, with the moon round and bright, and the stars shining more vividly than they are ever seen in New Zealand,.are nearly always chosen by the Japanese for their raids. Sometimes they occur early in the evening, when the moan of the siren interrupts the screening of films at. New Zealand camps, and sometimes they are much later and the warning brings all ranks from their beds for an early-morning trip to the shelters.

ROAR OF NIGHT-FIGHTERS.

There is comfort in the healthy roar of the night-fighters that take off from nearby fields intercept the raiders. The slim outline can be easily distinguished as the fighters go aloft, and every man's hopes go with them, for these single-seaters have an enviable number of enemy night-raiders to their credit.

From somewhere in the night sky, so distant that it is vaguely sensed rather than heard, comes the typical beat of the enemy's deliberately unsynchronised motors. Searchlights send their finger's groping. for the Japanese, and their violet brilliance makes even the moon look pale. The beams sweep to and fro over one particular patch of sky, and then steady, in a pyramid of light, with the raider, like a silver moth, impaled on their tip.

Anti-aircraft guns go into action with an ear-splitting crack. Men duck instinctively as they hear the shells whistling up, and then watch the burst. They cannot help a reluctant admiration of the enemy pilot's impertinence, for 6ften he will fly straight through a barrage. Sometimes the guns turn him back and it-becomes a race between the target and the searchlights, as he speeds for safety in the dark.

New Zealanders have seen, on several occasions, a raider break through a barrage, and have wondered why the guns have suddenly stopped. They have listened for the whistle of falling bombs, and have heard instead the surging rush of the night-fighter, closing for the kill. The raider shows clearly, firmly held by the searchlights, and a spurt of tracer, bright red against the black sky, tells that' the American pilot is within range.. Burst after burst is pumped into the raider, and spontaneous yells of delight come from a thousand foxholes as a growing flare tells that another Japanese bomber will not be going home.

VERY FEW INJURIES,

Not all the raiders are shot down. The New Zealanders have heard the warning swish of bombs, have felt the earth shake, and have seen a great curtain of fire rise from the ground as heavy bombs have struck. They have seen, and heard, dive-bombers. They have seen Zeros, ground strafing, low enough to ruffle the coconut palms with the wind of their passing; but injuries among Dominion personnel have been practically nil.

Thus it is that, in spite of accurate published accounts and communiques recording attacks on Guadalcanal, airmen's letters of assurance should be accepted at their face value by relatives back in the Dominion. Every possible precaution for the airmen's safety is taken, and to such good effect that each month's spell of raids brings little more than a spate of letters assuring relatives that "Tojo was over, but we're still here."