CLOSE TOUCH AND GO.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21076, 9 January 1932, Page 3 (Supplement)

CLOSE TOUCH AND GO.

LIVE BOMBS GET LOOSE. AIRMAN SAVED BY SCARF. How a famous airman discovered that he was flying over his own territory with a live bomb that threatened to drop every minute and destroy dozens of lives has been disclosed. The pilot is Haupt Heydemarck, a well-known German ace during the war. Flying in a double-decker machine, he discovered to his horror that two huge bombs had got wedged in the release shute at the bottom of the cockpit in such a way that it made it impossible for him . to land While he was struggling to right them he found that they had slipped down and that the vibrations of the engine were slowly forcing open the wooden trap which would let the missiles drop to earth. To add to the airman's difficulties lie discovered that his tanks were running short of petrol and that even if the bombs did not drop of their own accord he would soon have to land with them and risk a terrible explosion The story of this hair-raising dilemma is told by Haupt Heydemarck in', Double-Decker C.666. published: in London. Tearing off his helmet and goggles the airman bent down and tried to get at the bombs. Every moment they slipped a little further down and then 110 realised that the little propellors, which were not supposed to revolve until the firing pin was opposite the detonator, had begun to spin round. " They only needed a strong shake for the bombs to burst and blow us to pieces in the air," he says. With great difficulty the pilot managed to wedge a couple of pencils between the blades of the propellors and stop them revolving. That danger disposed of he then had to find some way of stopping the bombs from dropping. He looked round him in despair and then remembered his scarf. He says:—"Hastily I loosened i.t from my neck and cautiously pushed its end toward the handle of the tower bomb with my screwdriver. After several fruitless efforts I contrived to pass it through, pull it up again, grab the two ends of my scarf in my left fist and raise myself carefully frofn tlio floor. The worst danger was over and the pilot managed to make a safe landing