FLIGHT TO TURIN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 5 August 1941, Page 2

FLIGHT TO TURIN

BOMBING OF ARSENAL DOMINION PILOT JUST GETS BACK Static which "turned the airscrews into two blue wheels" and caused sparks several inches long to fiy from the radio set was one of the many experiences of the crow of a Wit icy '-umber which bombed an arsenal at Turin, in Italy. The captain of the air r-aft was Pilot-Officer H. H. J. Miller (Morrinsville), who was formerly a school teacher at Southall. Hamilton, before he joined the R.A.F. He was recently awarded the D.F.C. for displaying "great determination and a complete disregard of enemy opposition” during his numerous operational flights. The worst possible weather conditions were experienced during the flight to Italy and back. A thick cloud hank with a ceding of 800 feet mode navigation difficult, and after leaving the French const Pilot-Officer Miller ai d his crew were not sure whether they were dying above the Atlantic or Fortunately the Wit lev's petrol supply kept the aircraft tt\:ng for an hour longer than the average flight. MEN U F.H BY THE H E "We carried on and bombed an .. '-en.d at Turin without incident,” . 1 d P lot Officer Miller. "There was <"mc ant; aircraft fire, but only after we had dropped our bombs. Then we beaded back to the Alps only to run mto even worse conditions than on the outward trip. Icing up became so bad that at one stage the controls were momentarily locked. "As soon as we got clear of the Alps we began to drop down as we wanted to get a pin-point and locate our position, Our radio, of course, was out of order, and it was impossible to get it going ..gain. Although we kept on dropping down we could not get clear of the clouds. We were still in them at 3000 feet and were not clear .it them until we got down to 800 feet. Then we found it was so pitch black that we could not see anything on the NO SIGN SEEN OF LAND "We began to drop flares to find out whether we had crossed the coast.. One of the flares showed us that we were over water, but we had no means of guessing whether we had crossed over the Dutch coast or oyer the French coast and were making for the Channel Islands. We decided to steer north for the time it was estimated it would take us to reach the Channel Islands. If we didn’t strike them we guessed we must have crossed the Dutch coast. "By six o'clock it was practically daylight- We were still over the water and I was becoming anxious as to whether the petrol supply would hold out. At tj.45 there was still no sign of land and I told the crew to prepare to abandon the aircraft. I throttled down as much as possible to conserve hut petrol we had left and switched from tank to tank to use up the last JEST ENOUGH PETROL "We flew on until 7.30 and then 7.45. A normal petrol supply was for lit hours and we had now been in the air for 12j hours. There was still no sign of land. I began to think we must be out over the Atlantic. I could see nothing but the great rolling waves of the sea below us. "Eventually we managed to get back to our station where everyone had given us up. They had heard nothing from us from the time that the valves : our wireless set had been blown out. It was only the fact that we were {lying such a marvellous aircraft as the Witley and that it was capable of keeping us up 12 hours 55 minutes that we came through. I think that flying time is just about a record for the Willey.” Tins is but one of the many interesting experiences that this New Zealand D.F.C. has had in his 30 raids. PilotOfficer Miller is now instructing pupils to Ay Wellington aircraft-