“SHOT TO PIECES” BY GERMANS

Southland Times, Issue 24160, 24 June 1940, Page 4

“SHOT TO PIECES” BY GERMANS

Air Battle Against

Odds

INVERCARGILL PILOT’S EXPERIENCES The exciting experiences of Pilot Officer G. C. Alington, of Invercargill, who was a member of the crew of a reconnaissance machine which was forced down at sea after an engagement with German fighter aeroplanes, is graphically told in a letter to his parents. The thrills of battle and the hazardous attempt to reach a base after the engagement would be enough in themselves to fill in one day in the life of an airman, but Pilot Officer Alington and the other members of the crew were to experience more: they were fired on by sentries on their return to the base!

Writing on May 28 Pilot Officer Alington said: “By the time you get this things will have settled themselves in Belgium and we will know how we stand. For the last few days I have been seeing an awful lot of that coast—all the way up to the top of Holland. ‘Beetling’ along in Avro Ansons, even though we do the work in threes, isn’t a very comforting job. We have not met anything up there yet, but there is plenty of time for that.” NINE ENEMY MACHINES Three days later (on May 31) Pilot Officer Alington resumed his letter; he describes the brush with enemy fighters as follows: “Whew!!! I’m on three days’ leave after such fun and games. Got shot down by the Huns! There were three of our machines doing the usual patrols in formation and my machine was leading. Down swooped nine enemy fighters out of the sun. They split up, three taking each one of us. “The whole shooting match lasted only six minutes, but we were shot to pieces. There were holes everywhere—wings, tanks, engines, and, remarkably, only one side of the fuselage near us whole.

“Our gunner in his turret was going hard at them and shot one of the devils down. I had nothing to do but get a signal out for the wireles operator to get off; but the set was useless, so I just sat and shivered. This was all just off Zeebrugge. “We set off for home then, engines and wings flapping wildly, and at only two-thirds throttle to keep the engines in the wings. The aileron controls were shot away in the first attack. “We got back in sight of a destroyer 65 miles nearer home and were going to put down in the ‘drink’ alongside when one motor cut out and we had to go straight in there and then! We scrambled out and rambled round on the wing. “Three of us were 0.K., but the gunner had a hole in his left calf and broke his ankle as we crashed. The destroyer put out a boat for us and that put us on a drifter which ran us to port—an hour’s pleasant run in the evening. FIRED ON BY SENTRIES “A waiting ambulance took us to the nearest aerodrome and there we got transport, arriving home about 2 a.m. That was not all. The sentries fired at us with a rifle—they had challenged us five times. We were in the car talking like fun, but as cold as ice. Were we ‘browned off’ and did we tell the sentries! “The medical orderly was good to us and gave us three days’ ‘excused duty’ and we converted that into leave. It meant three days’ sun, some tennis, a soft bed and a good feed for me. “Our clothes were pretty wet from the waist down from our forced dip in the sea. One of the other machines got home with six holes and the other was given only one burst —that was sufficient to put the tanks on fire, so the pilot made for a destroyer and put down alongside. However, each got a Messerschmitt 109 on the one trip so that wasn’t so bad. Next time I am going to have a gun in my hands, and so is the wireless operator. More fun for everybody else then, ‘Jerry’ included”