JAPANESE AIRMAN’S HEROISM

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 June 1930, Page 5

JAPANESE AIRMAN’S HEROISM

CONSIDERATION FOR HOSTS. LONDON, April 24. Flight-lieutenant Kabayashi, of the Japanese Army, who is undergoing a course of instruction with the Royal Air Force, went up in a Siskin fighting aeroplane at Hornchurch, Essex, last week. He had only been in the air five minutes when his machine burst into flames at a height of 1,000 feet, and began to fall directly over the aerodrome. It was then the 30-year-old Japanese airman risked death to save his hosts from possible injury. The para?chute and safety were at hand, but

[ instead he lingered on in the blazing machine manoeuvring with the controls until he had set the machine in a nose-dive away from the menaced buildings. Not until then did he jump from the burning machine. His parachute opened and he landed in a small wood. His overalls were singed, and he was cut and scratched, but otherwise was unhurt. A vivid story of the crash was told by an eye-witness. “I watched the aeroplane manoeuvring for a few minutes, when flames burst from the machine,” he said. “I expected to see the pilot jump for his life. Instead he remained in the machine. Apparently he was afraid to let the blazing aeroplane fall on the aerodrome and cottages immediately below. Then

I saw the machine fall ihto a dive away from the aerodrome, and a second later the' pilot jumped out ahd his parachute opened up. The machine was wrecked.”