BOMBS OVER GERMANY

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 September 1940, Page 2

BOMBS OVER GERMANY

GREYMOUTH PILOT’S STORY. .Writing to his parents in Greymouth, from an aerodrome “somewhere in England,” an officer of the New Zealand Heavy Bomber Squadron tells a thrilling story of his experiences over Germany. Referring to a night raid, he says: “We left —-— in reasonably fine weather, which continued to remain so until we were nearing the Dutch coast. There we ran into violent thunderstorms, and spent some time trying to climb up through the clouds to a safe height away from the lightning. The latter is hot very pleasant when you are sitting on top of a ton and a half of high-explosive, as well as a lot of petrol. However, we climbed pretty sluggishly, and only succeeded in getting iced up, a thing we fear more than balloons, which take first place from anti-aircraft fire and fighters. W'e were lucky, though, and beyond having the breech-blocks of the ’ma-chine-guns iced, our controls and carburretors remained free.

“Over the Ruhr, and just past the Rhine, the weather began to clear, and beyond the fact that we knew the Ruhr was smothered in balloons, which were still a good deal higher than we were, we began to brighten up tod. However, the break in the weather allowed the searchlights to come through, and pin-point us for their pals in the ack-ack gun crews. Consequently, we had a warm few minutes until we reached another cloud layer. They still flung up shells, but the shooting was wild without the lights, and is always, so long as you remember to fool -the sound-track recorders. Around Bremen, which is another dangerous balloon area we ran into clear moonlight, dozens of searchlights, and thousands of anti-aircraft guns. Bremen is a tough spot. I was flying the old crate over there a week ago, and it took me 23 minutes to get out of searchlights and ack-ack. However, we dodged this, and continued towards Hamburg, an even hotter spot. Our target was an aerodrome just to the south of Hamburg, and we decided to pay them a courtesy call. We dived from. 8000 ft to 3000 ft, and let them have six of the best. I hope they all had ear-ache after the bang, as one cannot miss from 3000 ft. DODGING JERRY’S KISSES.

“We left the aerodrome, and, while circling around and dodging Jerry’s kisses, we spotted three traiffs with steam up in a railway marshalling yard. One was pulling away slowly towards Hamburg, and the other two were stationary. We climbed to 3000 ft, and yet we could still clearly dropping three more high-explosive bombs , and a canister of incendiaries. Then‘the’ fireworks started. The explosions which followed defy description. They were simply terrific, and were made up of every colour in the rainbow. The lines of trucks were rapidly being blown to pieces by their own cargoes, which by this time had been established as ammunition. The locomotives were blown to blazes, and the entire works went up in smoke. We were 40 miles away, and still at 3000 ft, and yet we could still clearly see the bangs. They certainly shook us some when they went off, too. Jerry, of course, was by this time thoroughly browned off, and threw everything he had at us. Some distance from the target, I climbed back from the cockpit to the observation turret, to have a look at things. The waggons were still popping merrily. Suddenly dozens of searchlights snapped on, and pin-pointed us almost immediately, for we were pretty low by this time. Johnny did his best to slide out of the lights, but while he was doing so I noticed three Messerschmitt 110’s diving on us from our starboard quarter. I could not let the tail-gunner know, for I had left my helmet on the navigator’s table. I was just debating whether to irian the centre turret, or run and find my helmet to let the tail-gunner krfow first, when all hell started popping again. The fighters sheered off, afraid of their own shellfire from the ground. Thus I had plenty of time to stroll back, fetch my helmet, and return to the astro hatch, to tell the gunner that the three fighters were still sitting above us in formation, and on our port quarter. He trained his guns, but we were literally bathed in ack-ack bursts, which kept them a safe distance away. Finally, we managed to dive into a cloud and elude them. This, however, had its drawbacks, as I only just had time to yell to Johnny to heave away to port, to avoid the balloon barrage over Bremen. The lights all snapped on again as I took over, and I had a great time sliding in and out of the beams and the shell bursts. However, the latter stopped and the lights continued, so we scooted for Holland, to avoid the fighters we knew were on our tail somewhere.

“South of Rotterdam we saw a lovely petrol fire, started by ’the Fleet Air Arm. It was simply colossal. Before we got to the coast,' the lights picked us up again, so I stuck the nose down to give the gunners a chance, and they certainly sprayed hell out of the blokes on the ground. Both gunners bagged searchfights, which was a good show, because it was the rear chap’s first trip over Hunland. It is not wise to be caught at daybreak only 1500 ft above Holland, so we opened the taps, and hiked it for England, home, and beauty.”