KAYE DON

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 December 1934, Page 3

KAYE DON

BAD LUCK AS BOMBER. How Kaye Don,, when a flying officer during the war, bombed in one night both the Portuguese front line, and British General Headquarters in France is related in Mr Wentworth Lay’s biography recently published. Mr Don, then a 27-year-old lieutenant, had taken off on a rainy winter evening in 1916 from an aerodrome near Vimy Ridge. His orders were to drop his bombs over the German lines. When he' judged that he was in the required position he released the bombs and his pilot turned back for the landing ground. A few minutes before coming down Don remembered instructions: "It was an axiom that, before . a bomber landed, he should test his Release lever and make certain that no last hesitant bomb remained jammed in the rack, ready to blow machine and pilot to pieces at the instant of landing. "His hand went to release lever. Ho jerked it back ...” On arrival at the aerodrome Don “was surrounded by indignant staff officers bearing the label of British General Headquarters.” He was told that he had just dropped a bomb within a few yards of British G.H.Q. in the morning a further complaint arrived—five bombs had been dropped by a British machine in and around the near-by front lines and brigade headquarters of the Portuguese. Don’s plane was the only one that had been up the previous night. He stated afterwards that the resultant inquiry had made him “not so popular."

"Kaye Don—the Man” tells the whole story of the famous drivers racing on land and sea in vivid style. “I know no man with a greater contempt for danger,” states Mr Day. "I should doubt if he has ever been really frightened. Yet I should hesitate to say that he is without that touch of imagination which gives a man the sense to know and appreciate Ihe appalling risk he must run.”