GALLANT EXPLOIT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 225, 21 August 1940, Page 7

GALLANT EXPLOIT.

VICTORIA CROSS WINNER. EMS VIADUCT BOMBED. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Aug. 19. Telling the story of the operation against the enemy for which he has been awarded the Victoria Cross (the third of tho war to an airman), Act-ing-Flight-Lieutenant R. A. B. Learoyd, of Folkstone, described how he and his crew s-et off as the last of a party of five bonibers to destroy an old aqueduct which carried the DortnuindEms Canal over the River Ems. The new aqueduct, he explained, had already been blown up by It.A.F. raiders and the Germans, had diverted to the old aqueduct the traffic of the canal, which is of great importance to the industrial area of the Ruhr. Most of the crews knew the way for they had been there before, and they met with no opposition all the w r ay over. Describing the attack, the pilot said, “We were relying on moonlight reflecting on the water to give us our direction for the run up. We, being the last of the five, were due to go in at 11.23 p.m., and two minutes before then wq came down to about 300 ft. We were then still several miles north of tho target, and gradually we lost height as we came along the canal, following its course all the time. WARM RECEPTION. .“The navigator was i.n the nose of tho aircraft doing the bomb-aiming. Everything was quiet till we got to a point wliere the canal forked just before the two aqueducts. I was doing the run up to this point, and then the navigator was taking over the directing. We must have gone off a bit to the left, because he called out, ‘Right,’ and then immediately after, when lie had turned a bit to make the correction, lie called out, ‘Steady.’ “Then, suddeuly, everything started at once —searchlights and all sorts of anti-aircraft fire. It was unfortunate from our point of view that the enemy knew pretty we!) the direction from which we must attack, and they had disposed their . defences so that, they formed a sort of lane through which we had to pass. “It seemed to me they had strengthened these defences a great deal since tho first raids. The searchlights were blinding and wo were flying entirely on the bomb-aimer’s instructions.. I had my head down inside the cockpit trying to see the instruments but the glare” made even that difficult. Our instructions were not to rush in too much because of the need for extreme accuracy. DAMAGE TO PLANE.

“Before we started the rear gunner had asked if he could fire at something or somebody, and he was shooting at the searchlights as we went past. Almost at the same moment as we bombed I felt a thump and. the aircraft lurched to the right..A pom-pom shell had gone through the starboard wing. Then another shell hit the same wing between the fuselage and the engine. They were firing pretty well at pointblank range. It was all over in a few seconds, and the navigator called out, ‘O.K., finis.’ Then we turned away again. ~ VVhen we had got away .the rear gunner reported that oil w r as coming into his cockpit, and then the wireless operator reported that the iiaps were drooping. 1 tried to raise them but found they wouldn’t come up. What had happened was that the hydraulic system had been damaged. We discovered, too, that the undercarriage indicators were out of action. “Not having landed without flaps before, I didn’t like to try it that night with the crew aboard, so we cruised round a bit doing a few local cross-country flights for about two ana a-half hours'. We waited till dawn anu then came in all right.”