RETURNED MEN

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 77, 28 September 1944, Page 8

RETURNED MEN

NAVY AND AIR FORCE

WIDE SPREAD OF SERVICE

' A member of No. 1 Squadron, R.A.F., one of the two Hurricane squadrons which accompanied the British Expeditionary Force to France at the beginning of the war and fought in co-operation with No. 73 Squadron and "Cobber" Kain, arrived back in New Zealand at the head of a recent draft of Royal New Zealand Air Force per-| sonnel. He is Squadron Leader W. H. Stratton,.D.F.C. and Bar, of Hawera, who has now been transferred to the R.N.Z.A.F. after service in the R.A.F Squadron Leader Stratton joined the j Royal Air Force in 1937 as an acting pilot officer under the short-service commission scheme, being trained wholly in England, although he had gained his "A" flying licence two years previously as a member of the Hawera branch of the Western Federated (North Island) Flying Club. He gained his D.F.C. in November, 1940, for his flying in France and later in England, and was shortly afterwards posted to Rhodesia as an instructor in part of the Empire Air Training Scheme which operated there He afterwards operated in the Western Desert, and then took a squadron under his command to India, where it operated on the Burma front He was awarded the bar to his decoration for service in these later campaigns. Squadron Leader Stratton said the Japanese air force had not been particularly noticeable of recent months tfombers on operations against Japanese troops and supply centres in the area commonly flew without fighter escort, and it was rarely that the Japanese ventured to send bombers out When they did they were in small numbers. The fighter squadrons m the area found most of their I work not m aerial combat but in the strafing of river sampans, motor conIKiS ps of troof>s-and an ocanSn? tSf dsg a^nes^ad Sd° varying experiences, from convoy duty on board escort carriers to one otherecent raids on the German battleship Tirpitz. Those with tours in the Atlantic said that the German long-range bombers rarely ventured out during recent months, although one had been shot down only a month ago by two New Zealand naval pilots. The main work was on submarine spotting and attack, and it appeared that although not yet a health resort the Atlantic was not the grim ocean it had been in the earlier years of the war. Lieutenant J. Pointon, R.NZNVR was one of the officers who had commanded a flotilla of L.C.T. (L's) in the Normandy landing, but did not have much .to say about it. He had also been m the North African and Sicily landings. Another naval officer, who had seen his war on M.T.B.'s, operated from Corsican bases against shipping supplying the German armies in Italy These craft, known to the Navy as "F-lighters" were Italian built, but had been taken over by the Germans. Finding that R.A.F. strafing of roads and railways behind their lines made it almost impossible to keep up supplies, they used them to sneak down the coast from Genoa southwards with supplies, mainly of ammunition, for the troops opposing the Fifth and Eighth Armies. They were craft of about 1900 tons displacement, and armed usually with four 38-millimetre cannon. The British M.T.B.'s patrolled likely areas avery night, and made a considerable number of contacts with the enemy, using usually a half-flotilla of M.T.B.s at a time, although for a big show two flotillas were called out. •That they were not without success, even at night, is borne out by the fact that in. 21 sorties they sank 23 ships with sorely-needed cargoes. In one glorious night when both flotillas of the M.T.B.s were on the job, acting on aircraft reconnaissance information, eleven of the big self-propelled cargo lighters were sent to the bottom. Proud father of the twins in the party was Flying Officer J. Moller, D.F.M., who was in the news photographs some time ago when he took the twins to Buckingham Palace for his investiture. Flying Officer. Moller wears the permanent badge of the Pathfinders below his decoration. Lieutenant R. G. Goldsmith, of Christchurch, who 'accompanied the draft, was conspicuous in the uniform of the South African Air Force, and their distinctive pilot's wings. Formerly employed by the Charles Haines Advertising Co. in Wellington, Lieutenant Goldsmith was in South Africa at the outbrerk of the war and joined up there. He was engaged mainly on Coastal Command work in Wellingtons and Catalinas, and has now been transferred to the R.N.Z.A.F.