SPECTACULAR CRASH

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 138, 8 December 1945, Page 8

SPECTACULAR CRASH

CARRIER'S SEAFIRE

! "ATTACK" BY CORSAIRS ("The Post's" Special Reporter.) ! ON BOARD H.M.S. INDEFATIGABLE, Thursday. A Seafire made a spectacular flying deck crash on 11.M.5. Indefatigable during exercises in Tasman Bay today. Though the machine was so smashed up that it was pushed over the side, the pilot suffered only a crushed fingpr. After Tuesday, when wind and cloud conditions were so poor that almost all the flying programme had to bo abandoned, and Wednesday, when the carrier and the two destroyers lay at anchor in Pelorus Sound with a gait blowing down the exposed Tawhitinu Reach, this morning was beautiful bright sun and a light breeze Launches, one or two of the ship' boats, and the amphibian Walrus wer away early, but the landing exercise by the Royal Marines, abandoned be cause of the weather yesterday, were still postponed. At 10.30 the three ships moved out oJ the Sound, towards Kapiti. The aircraft handlers brought up the day't aircraft by lift from the two immense hangars underneath the armoured Hying deck. The Walrus, the Admiral.--communication amphibian, Hew on anc off by way of deck practice, a leisurelj business by a leisurely machine; the Walrus is "not built for speed. First of the main ilight away were itho heavy Avengers and the Fireflies j some of which flew over Welling toi> with more pamphlets, but their mail exercise was miles away, in navigational work between Kapiti, Egmqnt. and a point far out to sea. Nothing much more was seen of most of them until late in the afternoon. In midafternoon a target-towing Avenger, crossed and recrossed the steaming lines of the carrier and destroyers for close-range shooting—Bofors, Oerlikons, and four and eight-barrelled pompoms. The heavy anti-aircraft guns, 4.5 in, did not fire, but were manned and constantly trained by radar throughout the main exercise. Soon after the Avengers took off! for their exercise, the first flights of Seafires, carrying extra fuel tanks, to be jettisoned when exhausted, flew off on long-range patrol against possible attack. On Tuesday, three types of planes were flown off in succession. It was an astounding demonstration of speed in getting planes into the air, but the Seafires had it all their own way, and they ripped off the flying deck with seconds between them PICKED UP BY RADAR. Today's "attack" by R.N.Z.A.F. Corsairs, was on the programme at some indefinite time after 1.30 p.m. The Corsairs took off from Ohakea and they were picked up by radar at 2.30 p.m. The three ships were in dangerous wr.ters, 15 and 20 miles offshore from high country, and the Corsairs used the hills as a dead screen to radar detection* until they were right on top of the carrier and destroyers. The balance of points of the exercise, however, was that the Seafires on patrol reached and intercepted the attackers 12 and I six miles from the ships. 1 With the first flights of carrier fighters away, the after flying deck was