WEATHER HAZARDS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25737, 8 January 1945, Page 3

WEATHER HAZARDS

WINTER MOVING OVER EUROPE (Rec. ,10 p.m.) LONDON, Jan. 7. A temperature of 50 degrees below freezing, electric storms, fog, and icing conditions are some of the weather hazards facing the crews of Bomber Commahd as winter moves over Europe, states the Air Ministry news service. Since P-Day sorties have been carried out in the most difficult weather. Pilots have reported icing, so severe that the bombers have to be brought down to low levels to prevent engine failure, and when the ice broke from the outer surface of the planes it bumped across the machines like fire from enemy guns. Sometimes air and ground crews have had to dig aircraft out of the snow before an operation and have cleared runways of up to two feet of snow before they could take off. Conditions were so difficult for one Australian plane returning from a raid that they struck some trees which tore away three of the four engines. The pilot, however, made a successful crash landing and the crew escaped unhurt. The onlv casualty was a rabbit, which was found dead in the bomb-aimer’s compartmcnt.”