THRILLING BATTLE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 27 January 1940, Page 3

THRILLING BATTLE

“MY FORTNIGHT IN GERMAN SUBMARINE” NAVAL AIRMAN’S STORY j NOW IMPRISONED IN CASTLE | (bv Air Mail— Special Correspondent 1 LONDON, 30th September. Mourned by his parents as dead for nearly two months, a young English naval airman has written home telling of his capture by the U-boat he tried to bomb, and how he was kept on board for a fortngiht. He is now in a German castle where the moat is filled with wild boars to prevent prisoners escaping. 'I went out in my machine,” he says, “to look for a sobmarine which was supposed to have sunk one of our merchant ships. I failed to find it and started back. “My observer suddenly shouted, There’s a merchant ship on the horizon. Lets look ot it.’ When we were almost on it my chap said ‘Go low so that 1 can see its name.’ “So I went to sea level and slowed down. Just as I got alongside a spotted the submarine on the far side of ! the ship. i “Up I went, but the U-boat had already got half-submerged, leaving me no time to get to a safe height to bomb from. So I took a chance and bombed from a low height in order to hit. “My first bomb missed by about 20 feet and I hit the sea at 200 m.p.h., at a steep dive. I went straight down without stopping. “I tried to get out of the cockpit, but was jammed in with a stuck roof. When I was almost out of breath I managed to break free and came to the surface. “My observer w r as killed at once. I never saw him again. I looked for him, but with no luck. “I then found I was nearly a mile away from the merchant ship, in very cold water, with flying clothes on and not a little knocked about. Somehow I got there and clambered aboard. “Some of the submarine’s crew were collecting the ship’s papers, and I was taken prisoner. A few minutes later up came the submarine, the ship was torpedoed almost at once, and once more I was submerged. I also had swim to the submarine. “I spent a fortnight in that submarine before it returned to Germany. I was then lodged at the local gaol for a fortnight, followed by a fortnight elsewhere, and then moved to this place.” In another letter the officer tells his father that a wrist-watch recently given him by his uncle was forced right into his wrist by the impact when he struck the water in his machine. When he found he had to swim a mile to reach the merchant ship. “I thought.” he said, “of the many bad motor-bike smashes I had had at home, and said to myself, ‘This cannot be the end.’ ”