RESCUED AFTER CRASH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24855, 3 March 1942, Page 5

RESCUED AFTER CRASH

A NEW ZEALAND PILOT MEDICAL MEN PUZZLED London, Feb. 28. The New Zealand Fleet Air Arm pilot Sub-lieutenant E. A. Pope is providing a puzzle for medical men, who contend that, instead of cheerfully lying in a hospital bed, Lieutenant Pops should have died when his plane crashed in the sea at 180 miles an hour. Although strapped into the machine, Lieutenant Pope somehow was thrown clear, and a naval craft found him swimming around dressed in his full kit.

Lieutenant Pope showed the New Zealand High Commissioner, Mr W. J. Jordan, a badly-dented tobacco tin when the High Commissioner visited the hospital during his tour of Scotland. Lieutenant Pope smilingly remarked that the tin probably saved his life.

Mr Jordan, during his tour, met many New Zealand pilots and naval officers at their stations. At one Fleet Air Arm base he saw 17 New Zealanders. Some asked if there was any chance of transferring to the Far East, “to have a crack at the Japs.” They were assured that every consideration was being given to such requests. “ I like their spirit,” Mr Jordan said. “If the people of Britain, facing the Germans 21 miles away at one part, can take it, we in New Zealand, 2000 miles away from the Japanese, are not going to run into the bush at the first sign of danger.” Mr Jordan also visited East Scotland flaxmills, where he saw New Zealand flax converted into canvas.