Wakeful Nights At Guadalcanar

Northern Advocate, 22 February 1943, Page 2

Wakeful Nights At Guadalcanar

The dispaich printed below has been received from Pilot-Officer R. G. Lund, who was editor of the “Southland Times” until he joined the Royal New Zealand Air Force. He is now on active service in the south-west Pacific. The most-talked-of person on Guadalcanal' is not Roosevelt, Tojo, Winston Churchill, or even Waller Nash. He is "Washing-machine” Charlie. This gentleman (or anything' else you like to call him) is the prototype of the Japanese l airmen who fly over (he island on night bombing raids. He derives his name from the yowling note 1 of his unsvnehronised engines, which sound like a fleet of washing machines churning through the clothes. He is very unpopular. But no one is very much worried about Charlie. He dare not come in the 1 daytime; his last daylight raid ended 'in such disaste-r that it. could not be repeated. And his night raids are notoriously ineffective. He keeps you awake* to be sure; he makes you swear—and swear violently—as you run through the mud to ycur foxhole; and occasionally he give's you a bad fright. The woosh of falling bombs is never a pleasant sound, and the other night the R.N.Z.A.F. officers here hi'ard a very loud woosh indeed when a 2501 b bomb landed within 3C yards of their hillside 1 camp. Somi'times, of course, . Charlie connects. A few nights ago he scored what he no doubt regarded as a minor triumph by landing a bomb on an American field hospital. There have been other casualties from time to time. But the? uninhabited area of Guadalcanar iv very much greater than the area of inhabited foxholes, and if you disappear inlo the ground quickly enough you are fairly safe.

NiglU Flying Tricks

Whclhor you do gel, (here quickly enough depends on the efficiency oi' the alarm system, which is generally good. Bui sometimes Charlie plays tricks. ' The night he hit the hospital he came in low. with his navigation lights on. behind a force of Amercan dive-bombers which were landing' after an attack on shipping. The first warning we had then was the bursting of bombs. Bur even with this advantage Charlie could not hit Henderson airfield, which, is his only worthwhile target. He’s a pretty poor shot, at the best of times. But he’s undoubtedly a nuisance. A good night’s sleep is a precious thing in the tropics. Even at night Charlie doesn’t have things all his own way. He gets a hot reception as he comes within range of the guns on Guadalcanal'. More "often than not the 1 searchlights pick him up; and (hen the sky is filled with the red bursts of anti-aircraft: shells. A few nights ago a Charlie was shot down. He used to fly imperturbably across the sky. treating searchlights and A.A. fire with lofty disregard. He does so no longer. It is a tribute to the A.A. gunners that he is now frequently turned off his course by the weight and accuracy of their fire. Before long we hope to have a few more specimens of Charlie littering the fields of Guadalcanal'.

Active Service Conditions

In spite of Charlie’s rather unreliable type of entertainment, the R.N.Z.A.F. contingent at Guadalcanal' is doing very well. The term is. of course, relative; active service conditions are not the conditions of a comfortable home in New Zealand. And tropical heat, tropical rain, and tropical pests make the Guadalcanal 1 front probably one of the worst in the world. Within these limits the New , Zealanders do very well. The American command is deeply appreciative of their work, and it does everything possible to make them comfortable and keep them cheerful. What has been printed in New Zealand of their exploits. I don’t know; but I do know that the job they are doing here is as valuable and as - hazardous as any .job New Zealand airmen are doing in any parr of the world. And it is being done in conditions which are certainly worse than those in Britain and the Middle .East, and against an opposition that is at least as vicious. It is impossible to work with the New Zealand air crews without feeling admiration for them. Among the Americans they are winning a respect for their country such as it lias never enjoyed before. I hone that one day if will be possible to do justice to them in print. A Daylight Battle January 2G. f was wrong about Charlie. He’s bolder than I thought—but not much. The very day I started this he attempted his first daylight raid for more than two months. If was an odd affair. When the alarm sounded we all rushed up rhe hill to get what was for most of us our first glimpse op an air battle. Reports were coming through thick and fast. There were flights of “bogies” coming in at 25 miles, at 50 miles, and at 80 miles. The air was filled with the noise of American fighters patrolling the sky. They moved off to the quarter from which the attack was coming, and we strained our eyes until the fears rolled down. Radio reports came in that one Zero was down, then two. then three. We could see nothing but a wall of cloud. Then a fourth Zero suddenlv came tumbling helplessly down into the sea. The battle went on for an‘hour or more, hut no enemy bombers came through. The full story, when wo heard it, seemed incomprehensible. The Jananese had come to ihe verv gates of Guadalcanar with 40 Zero fighters. 22 twin-engined bombers, and 18 to 20 dive-bombers. They lost four and probably six Zeros, in the first encounter: and the rest of the air fleet nrcmptly turned back to its base. The Japs are not fools, and. generallv. thev are not cowards. There is possibly an explanation of their behaviour that is not yet apparent. But ■ the most lifrelv explanation is the simplest one: thov found the defences too strong for them and were unwilling to risk disaster on the scale they suffered last November. The Americans lost no fighters. Their a>r power is mounting, and the proportion of enemy losses to their own Is increasing. As we sec things here, the people of Now Zealand have no need to worry about invasion. v