Free French Airmens Great Work

Manawatu Times, Volume 66, Issue 121, 23 May 1941, Page 7

Free French Airmens Great Work

(British Official Wireless.) Received Thursday, 9.20 p.m. RUGBY, May 21. Side by side with the R.A.F. the Free French Sudan Squadron has for two months daily taken part in the operations in Abyssinia. They have frequently been mentioned in British official communiques, particularly n connection with the bombardment of Debra Marcos and Bahadur, aud more recently in the region of Lake Tana, especially at Gondar and Chilga. The following accounts of action by a French lieutenant who fought in Franco until just before the armistice is typical: “We had just completed our first flight over tho Gondar aerodrome, dropping two bombs on the hangar. “I was getting ready for a second attack when I saw an Italian CR42 coming out of the clouds about two miles off and heading straight for us. I immediately made for the clouds, but the CR42 was faster. It gave chase and for two minutes was not more than 200 yards away, firing all the time. Our plane was peppered with tracers, one of these hitting our machine just above the shield bearing the Cross of Lorraine. It missed our gunner by about 20 inches. He quickly put out the tracer bullets. There was such a smell of burning that I thought something more serious had happened. The Italian plane, crossing in upon us, dived under the Blenheim’s tail to attack from below.

“Seeing this manoeuvre, I bankod suddenly so as to get the enemy within range of the machine-gunner. He released a long burst of tracer bullets, some of which went straight into the enemy’s engine. As a result the distance between us and the Italian rapidly increased and we finally saw him crash on. rough, ground.”