RAIDING FROM MALTA

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 28 May 1942, Page 5

RAIDING FROM MALTA

N.Z. AIRMAN’S EXPERIENCES HOT TIME RECEIVED ON OPERATIONS (Rec. 11.0 a.m.) London, May 27. Flight Sergeant C. A. Armstrong. Devonport who was recently awarded the D.F.M., has returned to England from Malta where he carried out 42 raids. Squadron Leader F. J. Steel. D.F.C.. Napier, Pilot Officer G. H. Easton. Christchurch and Flight Sergeant K. K. Coleman, Blenheim were in the same squadron. Squadron Leader Steel, has now gone to India. Pilot Officer Easton is flying with the British Overseas Airways Corporation in the Middle East and Flight Sergeant Coleman is in England. Flight Sergeant Armstrong said: ‘T was posted to a Wellington bomber squadron in May, 1941 and arrived at Malta in October. I liked the look of the place, so applied to stay, which was granted. I carried out two raids when my old squadron arrived‘and got transferred. I did 34 raids as captain, bombing Tripoli fourteen times. Naples eight. Benghazi four and also Taranto, Brindisi. Misurate. Sicily and Patras. 1 also bombed four convoys in the Mediterranean. “Patras was the most exciting and most difficult of all. Our target was shipping which was in a funnel shaped harbour, which was difficult to approach for the hills rise almost sheer for 4.000 feet behind the town. Anti-aircraft gunners were placed 2.000 <eet up in the hills and shelled us while we dived under a cloud to the base. At 2,500 feet j we had to look lively to dodge the flak and avoid hitting the mist-shrouded I hills. “We had an interesting time bombing i Misurate when the British were apJ proaching Benghazi. It was a beauti- ; ful night. We started big fires and ' shot up road transport of which there j was plenty. A piece of incendiary I flak entered the aircraft, but the I navigator picked it up in a handker- ! chief and threw it out. We had an interesting time at Malta for the first two months, but the raids altered things. Malta was bombed 60 times in Christmas week. I was lucky to escape when a 500 pounder landed 50 yards away, while I was working on an aircraft preparing for a raid that night. I was two months at Suez after operations.” Flight Sergeant Armstrong has applied to go to the United States as an instructor.—P.A. special correspondent.