HEROISM ON AIR-LINER

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 November 1939, Page 10

HEROISM ON AIR-LINER

MACHINE-GUNNED BY GERMANS

LONDON, September 30

Anny Mynoldt, 24-year-old hostess on the Dutch air-liner which was machine-gunned by a German aeroplane, told this week how she kept the news of the attack from the passengers. Gustave Lamm, a. Swedish passenger, who was sitting in the back seat of the liner, was killed just aftei she had been talking to him. She pretended he was ill, laid him back in the seat, and covered him with a rug. Then she tended the dead man as though he had fainted. Miss Mynoldt said, “1 heard rattling on the plane and I hurried to Pilot Moll to ask him’what was'wrong. The rattling was caused by German bullets. More came as I was on my way to the pilot, and one of these hit Mr. Lamm. I gave the other passengers papers and books, and talked to them about everyday things with a smile on my face, but with death in my heart, because I was the only one who knew what, had happened.

“When passengers asked me about the rattling 1 said the aerials had got loose. I had a terrible moment when I went into the pantry. There was another burst of rattling and bullets flew round me. Some of the passengers smelled burning. I said it was a smell defect in the machine, and nothing to bo afraid of. “Nobody else knew that the machine bail been struck by fifty bullets. The passengers knew nothing of the attack- until we landed.”