AIRMAN’S EXPLOIT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 215, 9 August 1940, Page 8

AIRMAN’S EXPLOIT.

FLYING-OFFICER KAIN

FLIJ.iNU-UFFiG.ItU IVAiiN. DECOYED BY JUNKERS. Although away out in desert lands. New Zealand soldicre of the First Echelon are not out of touch with news,, of what is going on in the world. They hear of war exploits elsewhere, and in those of Flying-Officer E. J. Kain they were deeply interested. Word of the air ace’s death was received there, as elsewhere, with deep regret. Some first-hand accounts ol that famous New Zealand airman’s deeds greatly stirred those New Zealand soldiers who heard them from men of the Royal Air Force in Egypt., Second-Lieutenant E. D. Blundell, of the 19th (Wellington) Battalion, writes: “One of these Royal Air Itarco lads knew personally our first ace, voting ‘Cobber’ Kain. Ihc .British pilots had a great respect for him and some of them had had personal experience in Flanders. One tale they, tell 1 j will repeat here in case his family has not heard it. . . “Kain was returning from a patrol whon he noticed below him au unescorted Junkers bomber of the older type. He suspected some trap, but the target was too tempting and he dived at it. Almost at once a red light went up from the bomber and then Kain knew for sure it was a trap. He pulled his Hurricane out of a dive and climbed almost vertically back into the clouds. Above these he ran into about 50 Messerschmitts. One of these he shot down and then beat it. succeeding m returning only slightly wounded, although his aeroplane was fall of bullet holes. “Tf at the present time, and certainly very much against their wishes, our fellows on hand are doing little, New Zealand pilots are making a name for themselves, as, indeed, are pilots from other Dominions. 1 gather that almost any Royal Air Force squadron now has a good leavening of Dominion pilots. I learn from high Royal Air Force sources that the ratio of losses, three and four to one, claimed by the papers is quite correct. It is a happy augury for the time when we have as many aeroplanes a 6 the enemy.