BOMBING ATTACK

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21009, 4 February 1943, Page 3

BOMBING ATTACK

ENEMY SUBMARINE N.Z. PLANE IN SOLOMONS CRAFT DAMAGED? (By Telegraph—-Press Assn —Copyright.) (N.Z.E.F. Official War Correspondent.) (10.30 a.m.) PACIFIC BASE. Feb. 3. The Japanese submarine sunk by New Zealand corvettes off Guadalcanal' last week was the second to be attacked by the Dominion • forces taking part in the battle for the south Pacific. The first one. which was hunted by a Lockheed Hudson reconnaissance bomber of the Royal New Zealand Air Force, also operating in the Solomons area, is not known positively, however, to have been destroyed.

The scoreboard on the wall of New Zealand air operations dug-out on Guadalcanal' includes a Japanese submarine probably damaged as well as two float-planes definitely destroyed.

This submarine episode happened some time before last week’s naval success. The New Zealand aircraft engaged on routine patrol sighted the submarine on the surface. Keeping the sun behind it in order to eonceal its approach, the bomber flew into an attacking position almost before the Japanese craft realised the danger. Tiie submarine then crash-dived with such desperate suddenness that the sole Japanese look-out on the conning tower had no time to get below in his panic-stricken ship and left him floundering helplessly in the water with only a few awful moments in which to decide whom to blame for his fate —his own crew or that of the bomber roaring over his head. In the next instant depth charges came hurtling down around him. straddling the diving submarine. When the churning sea grew calm again, a disc of oil spread over its surface —evidence of probable damage to .the Japanese submarine.