BRUTAL STRAFING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25385, 17 November 1943, Page 4

BRUTAL STRAFING

AIRMAN IN RUBBER DINGHY MISSING DUNEDIN OFFICER The following story, by John Brennan, is published in the Sydney Bulletin of September 22. Sergeant T. E. Ganley of Hamilton, who returned to his R.N.Z.A.F. squadron 37 days after the take-off, has told the story of a resonnaissance flight near Vella Lavella on July 24 from which the bomber failed to return. Ganley was the turretgunner. He is the only known survivor. Flying low, they were north-west of Vella Lavella when they ran into a flight of eight Zeros. The bomber sheered off and headed south, its guns blazing defenS 1 The'second pilot and fire-control officer, F B Kerr, of Dunedin, was badly wounded by the first burst. Ganley’s turret and guns were put out of action, and he was wounded —forehead and hip, left arm and wrist. He went to man the bomber s belly guns. Two Zeros were shot into the sea, but the rest pressed their attack. Kerr drew Ganley’s attention to a fire at the bomber's starboard wing root. They managed to get it partly under control with extinguishers. No use; the pilot. Flight-Lieutenant W. G. C. Allison, of Auckland, was forced to make a crash landing into the sea two miles from an island. . ■ , The automatic ejection gear inflated the ’plane's rubber dinghy and launched it, and all six men got into the water. They were in pairs: Colonel Bengough (he was Britain’s Acting Resident Commissioner) and Sergeant J. H. Johnstone, the other gunner; the two pilots; Ganley and the navigator. R. G. Douglas, also wounded —they were clinging to the dinghy. The Zeros came in again. Douglas, hit, lost his grip on the dinghy and floated away. Colonel Bengough and Johnstone are believed to have been killed in the first run. Ganely did not see what happened to the two pilots. He saved himself from the strafing by ducking beneath the dinghy. The enemy persisted with their attack for 10 minutes. The dinghy sank shortly after they had made off. Ganley managed to keep himself afloat long enough to reach an island. His wounds were causing him great pain. He dragged himself up the beach and, finding shelter, rested for a day and a night; then he found a small one-man rubber dinghy from an American fighter 'plane. There were two bars of chocolate, and Ganley lived on them and coconuts and water from a spring for seven days. One night an enemy landing barge came to the island with a small party. Ganley hid in the jungle, watched them go and decided that they might come back. His feet had been badly cut by the coral, so he made himself some pads from his life-jacket and then, carrying the dinghy, walked for six miles round the island to a point nearest a near-by island. He paddied his way slowly across by hand. Halfway across a Zero sighted him and came down circling. Then apparently mistaking him for a Japanese, the pilot waggled his wings and flew off. Ganley approached the island cautiously. He was about 50 yards off-shore when he noticed a native peering at him from the jungle. He waved and shouted he was British. Almost immediately some 400 natives came down to the beach. A number of them waded out to him, and they carried him in ceremony, the rest following, to their village. For a month they fed him, cared for his wounds, and hid him from the Japanese. When a rescue party came for him his wounds were healed and he had completely recovered from his ordeal.