THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Saturday, February 12, 1944. THE PATHFINDERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25458, 12 February 1944, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES Saturday, February 12, 1944. THE PATHFINDERS

There is probably no feature of the relentless Allied air war against Germany and German-occupied Europe that is more spectacular and that receives less publicity than that which relates to the job of the Path- ' finder squadrons. Mention of their hazardous and highly ’specialised work in the cabled reports of bombing raids on Berlin and other centres of German industry is usually brief, almost to the point of casualness, merely indicating that on another night incursion into enemy territory the heavy bombers were again guided unerringly to their targets by units of the Path- ! finder Force. Thus we read, in the very interesting account of the operations of New Zealanders Who are members of the Lancaster heavy bomber crews, given a few days ago by the London representative of the New Zealand Press Association, a reference to a raid on the German capital in these terms: “We arrived over Berlin among the first of the second wave and found the Pathfinders’ flares glowing nicely.” The bombers, in brief, had been presented with their target regardless of darkness and enshrouding cloud —and the world well knows what methodical and coldly-calculated pattern bombing has done to Berlin in the past few months. The Pathfinder Force came into being as a separate organisational unit in 1942, to meet the need for that scrupulous measure of exactitude which now characterises the destruction of German industry at its many sources. It is made up of the most skilful sand experienced pilots in the R.A.F., each of whom wears the gilt eagle of the Pathfinder —the distinctive insignia of the force—beneath his “wings.” Youth, daring, and -supreme competence may be assumed to be the essential qualifications of its members. It is, in fact, commanded by the youngest officer of his rank in the R.A.F.—Air Vicemarshal D. C. T. Bennett, C.8.E., D. 5.0., a Queenslander who, before the war, was a civil pilot, who led the first flight of the Atlantic ferry service in 1940, and is now only 33 years of age. The duty of the Pathfinders is to go ahead of the heavy bomber squadrons and mark ■ out the target with flares, known separately as target indicators and sky markers. The target indicators burn on the ground, and are said to be visible through the densest cloud banks, while the sky markers are special flares suspended from parachutes. Bomber Command* it is claimed, is thus made independent of all but the most freakish weather. Accuracy is, of course, the sine qua non of the Pathfinders’ work. The wrong marking of a target may obviously lead to the complete wastage of valuable bomb loads. The Pathfinder pilots are not' only briefed with meticulous care, but they are also required to carry out their operations with a precision that is faultless in respect of both time and place. Bomber Command calculates its operations virtually down to split seconds, for only by the cutting down of • the time taken by the actual bombing to an absolute minimum is that degree of target “ saturation ” attained which contributes to the defeat of the enemy defences and paralyses the efforts of the fire-fighters. An attack last October on the German industrial town of Kassel is quoted as the perfect example of this amazing coordination between the two operational units. Kassel was known to contain many specialised war plants in a comparatively small and compact area. The Pathfinders outlined that area; within 20 minutes the target was clearly illuminated, and, inside 27 more minutes, the bombers had literally wiped it out. • Three hundred out of a total of 315 acres marked were utterly devastated— : an experience in precision bombing which is said to have given cause for the grim German comment: “British bombers were shot down; one of our cities is missing.” The Germans, needless to say, employ every device of cunning—for example, in the multiplication of flares and the laying of false trails—in an endeavour to lure the bombers off the track blazed by the Pathfinders. The bomber pilots, however, are seldom deceived. They fly in on the very tails of the men who lead and light the way. It is indeed an apt name that distinguishes the intrepid flyers who wear the gilt eagle.