“DUMBO" MISSIONS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 10 March 1944, Page 2

“DUMBO" MISSIONS

N.Z. CATALINA RESCUES AIRMAN FROM THE SEA (Official R.N.Z.A.F,- News Service) Listed as missing for nine days, an American Corsair pilot has been returned to his unit by a New Zealand Catalina flying-boat. He was saved from hostile seas and probable death. The flyer was shot down over the Gazelle Peninsula, in New Britain, while covering a raid on Vunakanau airfield, near Rabaul. He carried his life raft through the jungle, floated down a river, and finally emerged at night into St. George’s Channel where, injured and suffering from exposure, he was picked up by an R.N.Z.A.F Catalina This is one of a number of rescues km?!?! ui ou i • in rec ent weeks by tt.!N.z..A.r. flying-boats operating from the Solomons. Notable in these Dumbo missions has been the fact that at times three types of New Zealand aircraft have co-operated in rescuing Allied airmen from the sea. Ventura bombers have sighted, reportf.y u nd , circled marooned aviators, Warhawks have given them fighter protection and Catalinas swept in to the final rescue.

On the same day as the Corsair pilot was rescued another New Zealand Catalina brought to safety two injured survivors of an American Mitchell bomber which was hit when on a strafing mission and crashed into the sea northward of Buka. A n °ther recent morning, with an escort of Corsairs and Airacobras, a New Zealand Catalina received a message to R»°ir C f e r d i t 0^ a point off Ca P e Henpan, Buka Island, to,search for a marooned New Zealand fighter pilot. At the cape R h \r 7 y J n w b u, at u was met hy three R.N.Z.A.F. Warhawks, who guided the searchers to the point where the New Zeatander, in the water, was being circled by other Warhawks. Making an open water landing the Catalina picked up the survivor, who had been forced down an hour earlier when his Warhawk’s petrol pump failed. Dumbo” missions may take the rescuers over hundreds of miles of ocean in one flisht, as was the case on a recent after»Don when a Catalina up * wo Corsair pilots, one forced down off Empress Augusta Bay by engine trouble, and the other eight miles off Cape St. George, New Ireland, where the pilot was forced to water lami^earlier^in^the^day.