THRILLS AT SEA

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 September 1940, Page 10

THRILLS AT SEA

N.Z. AIRMEN’S VOYAGE To see a tanker explode and become a blazing inferno was but one of the thrilling experiences of those on a recent voyage from New Zealand to Great Britain. For the New 1 Zealand airmen on one of the vessels in the convoy the exciting concluding stages of the voyage were striking evidence of the need for rallying these .men to the Empire’s call. In writing to his relatives a young New Zealand pilot officer also gives a striking line on the confident attitude of the people of the Old Country. “From what we have seen, the spirit of the people is wonderful and the air raids do not affect their morale very much,” he states. “Keep your chins up! England will be a tough nut for Hitler to crack.” Of the more exciting stages of the voyage to England, Pilot Officer 1 W. iMiddleton, formerly of Wellington and now of Auckland, writes: “We were going along peacefully on a nice day when there was a ' terrific explosion near us. Looking around, we saw bits of a tanker hundreds of feet in the air. She was ablaze instantly, and so was the water around. Five men out of forty-three got out of it alive. Not a very nice sight, believe me! “Of course, a submarine was responsible, and later in the'day a flying boat had the pleasure of sinking the swine. A destroyer sank the blazing hulk after it had burned for several hours. “All went well until the next night, when, about dusk (11.15), there were some loud explosions near us. We scampered up to hear that a destroyer had dropped depth charges and, it was believed, had sunk another submarine which had obviously been waiting for us, Next morning we , passed some bodies floating in the water. It is not the best of sights. We have seen six in all now.

t . ATTACKS FROM AIR , “Then, while on duty that after--5 noon, I saw a plane close to the sea a fair way off and going up and down E at high speed. It seemed to be on a submarine hunt, so I did not take any I special interest in it until it came , near the convoy and dropped bombs . on us. It was a Dornier and very fast. It flew about with our guns keeping it ; fairly high for about half an hour be- > fore an old type of British machine appeared. They_had quite a fight for . four minutes. But the Britisher did [ the wise thing and’went, for the Hun > had about 160 m.p.h. more speed. The ; Dornier kept around for another hour and went away just before some of , our fighters came on the scene. ) “We expected an attack that night, for we were near the coast of Scotland. Our escorting planes and some (fighters had barely left us when out Jof the clouds came three planes. As j the fighters had come from the same , spot about four minutes before, we ’ thought they were some of our bomb,kers returning from a-raid over Ger- ' many. We were watching them when we heard a whistle and bombs fell all around. Not too nice! ' A piece of ’ shrapnel fell a few feet away. No ; ships were hit, although the bombs only missed some by a few feet. r “Next morning we. berthed at a Scottish port and set foot on land for the first time really in 44 days. That 1 afternoon we left by train for London, where we arrived well after midnight, and then proceeded by bus . to our station. The officer who met us • at the station used to be a sheep- , farmer in Canterbury years ago. His : father was Governor of New Zealand —Lord Plunket.’-’