AIR FORCE GUNNERS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23615, 27 March 1940, Page 6

AIR FORCE GUNNERS

NEW TYPE OF OFFIICER MENACE TO NAZI AIRCRAFT [from our own correspondent! LONDON, March 1 The war has brought to the Royal 'Air Force a new type of fighting man f —officer air-gunners. They are the crack shots who will sit in the tail turrets of Britain's big bombers, ready to fight off with a battery of machineguns" any enemy aircraft which may attack them. As yet many of them are still under training. But a number of these newlycommissioned air-gunners are now joining operational squadrons, with the new A.G.. badge on their uniforms. The first batch includes representatives of many professions. At ! one bombing and gunnery school there is a Canadian who served two years in tho North-west Mounted Police, and three years in',tho Royal Canadian Air Force; a master builder; a tobacco planter ■ from Siam; a wireless engineer; an Eton and Oxford racehorse owner; a ' London newspaper man; a policeman; ■ a Western Australian medical student; '• a business man who flow seaplaneu in the last war and survived five crashes; an instructor in the London Gliding Club. One of tho earliest to join was a well-known member of the House of Commons. * Although of widely differing types, "they have two things in common—(they are all used to firearms; and they are men who can bo relied on in a ' tight corner. All are tremendously keen ' on their job, and share a dote'rmina- ■ tion to shoot holes in Nazi aircraft at the earliest possible opportunity. - The.average ago of the officers under "training at this sehool is >10;, some of them are nearly twice that age