WARHAWK SQUADRON

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25562, 15 June 1944, Page 6

WARHAWK SQUADRON

OPERATIONS IN BOUGAINVILLE REPUTATION FOR ACCURACY (R.N.Z.A.F. Official News Service) BOUGAINVILLE, ' (Rec. 7 p.m.) June 9. In their task of making life miserable for the Japanese in the Northern Solomons, New Britain, and New Ireland, Warhawks of the Royal New Zealand Air Force have established an outstanding reputation as successful fighter-bombers, and they have struck with accuracy at enemy airfields, supply areas, troop concentrations, bridges, barges, motor transport, and roads.

A Warhawk squadron now operating from Bougainville has become noted for its devotion to enemy bridges. A fighter-bomber, when attacking a small target such as a bridge, must not only approach at the right angle and in the right direction, but also must release his bombs at the exact critical instant. Fractions of seconds apart from this moment mean yards of miss. On some targets "near misses’’ mean bombs wasted. Japanese guns, which are. often protected by strongly-built emplacements, .have been known to remain in action although “nearmissed” by only 15 yards with a 5001 b bomb.

The Warhawk squadron now in Bougainville, led by Squadron Leader D F. St. George (Auckland), has completed an impressive number of sorties as fighter-bombers with conspicuous success. The pilots complain that on this tour they not even sighted an enemy aircraft in the air, but then they were among the New Zealanders who helped to knock the Japanese out of the sky during the earlier stages of the campaign. They cannot have it both ways.