N.Z. PILOT’S ROMANCE

Grey River Argus, 8 January 1944, Page 8

N.Z. PILOT’S ROMANCE

RADIO PROPOSAL "SYDNEY, Dec. 28. A New Zealand airman operating in the Solomons has proposed to a Sydney girl by radio and been accepted. They will be married after the war. They are Miss Doreen Hawker, daughter of Mrs H. R. Hawker' of Kirribilli, and Flying Officer Douglas L. Jones, son of Mr and Mrs Thomas L. Jones. Christchurch, N.Z. According to Sydney “Sun”. war correspondent Winston Turner, Jones figured in one of the most remarkable aerial escapes of the war. After the capitulation of Java, Jones, with two young Australian airmen, a Canadian and a Dutchman, eluded capture, and near Pamaunpouk, m the interior, came across the deserted airfield, scattered with damaged planes. The airmen found among the debris a Lockheed 10, with its tail blown off, but its engines in running order Searching further, they found a similar plane, nose wrecked but fail intact. Showino- remarkable ingenuity m a race against time, they fitted the tail to the fuselage (using rope, and a sixpence, as a screwdriver), plugged up damaged fuel tanks from another plane with cork and chips oi wood lashed them ins'de the plane with bamboo and string and mounted a mach’ne-gun and tommy-gun as armament. Then zig-zagging crazily to avo'd craters —because the field had been dvnamited by the jivtch—thev got the plane off by a 100 to 1 chance.. . In this fantastic aircraft the five flew 2000 miles un Sumatra and across the Ind ! an Ocean, to Ceylon navigating by a man of the world to rr| from a magazine. The two Australians have smee died ’n action —Serveant P’lot Stewart Munroe, of Grafton (New South Wales) at M'lne Bay. and Sergeant Pilot Alan Matrin. of Sydney, m North AustmVa. Th° Canad'ar Flv;r,„ office- Riffiolfo Mendavahel, was killed in Burma a few weeks ago. Onlv the Dutchman, Lieutenant F. and Jones are still fighting thn Jap. „ , . ~.. Flying Officer Jones met Miss TJow'ker in Sydney, through Servant pilot Munroe, after h'« ..escape. They had corresponded for 16 months, during which he was tw'ce shot down by the Japs in the Solomons, before he proposed.