SQUADRON’S DEADLY WORK.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 98, 25 March 1941, Page 5

SQUADRON’S DEADLY WORK.

(British Official Wireless-) JUJGBY, March 23. Scouring the whole of Eritrea looking for trouble is the present activity of a squadron of the South African Air Force whose varied exploits are described by ibe Air Ministry News Service. The squadron finds plenty to do, but day after da.y returns to its base and enters up in tbe log books: “No enemy aircraft sighted.” Since its arrival in the Sudan the squadron has been responsible for the destruction of nearly 80 Italian aircraft, and to-day an Italian plane is a rare sight in its sector.

The squadron is one of the S.A.A.F. units and must be given chief credit for Britain’s air superiority over the Italians in East Africa. All young—some regulars, some volunteers—these South Africans have wrought havoc among Italy’s air force. They are shooting down Caproni 42’s at almost every sortie. On the ground they ferret out an anti-aircraft barrage just a few feet “off the deck.” One of the pilots lias 14 enemy aircraft to his credit, including six shot down in combat. Another lieutenant who destroyed four recently was promoted on the field to the rank of captain for gallantry and devotion to duty and subsequently given the immediate award of the D.F.C. Another captain holds the D.F.C., awarded for brilliant work in a battle in Eritrea.

The squadron lias accomplished a giant’s task. ’Wrecked Italian aircraft lie all over Eritrea, on the enemy’s aerodromes and in hangars and in the bush. Thousands of machine-gun bullets, have been fired into enemy objectives. Seventeen thousand bullets from one aircraft in one day is nothing unusual.