N.Z. FIGHTER PILOTS

Southland Times, Issue 24440, 21 May 1941, Page 2

N.Z. FIGHTER PILOTS

Thrills Of Combat

LONDON, April 10. Ten pilots of the New Zealand Fighter Squadron who have been on operations against the Germans shot down seven Nazi planes before being posted to the newly-formed .unit. The pilot with the highest individual score at present . Pilot Officer E. . Wells (Cambridge), who is credited with three Messerschmitt 109 s. He has also damaged three more and accounted for a “probable” fourth. Pilot Officer Wells was trained at Weraroa, Blenheim, and New Plymouth. He got his first Messerschmitt in October over the Kent coast at 15,000 feet. After a two-second burst it dived into the sea off Dover.

In November he shot down two more. While flying at 25,000 feet north of Dungeness he was instructed to “investigate” a lone Hurricane. He also found four Messerschmitt 109’s, and made a deflection attack on them. One began to spout glycol and then black smoke. Flames came from the cockpit and it turned on its back. It crashed near Dymchurch. Pilot Officer Wells collected his third Nazi over Chatham at 22,000 feet. It went into a long dive and crashed into the sea off Dover. In other fights he also damaged two more Messerschmitt 109’s, a Henschel 126, and an Italian C.R. 42.

FROM RONGOTAI DROME Pilot Officer A. G. Mclntyre (Palmerston North) has one and a-half Nazis to his credit. He learned to fly at Rongotai, where his instructor was Squadron Leader J. Rawnsley, and he completed his training in New Zealand before arriving in Britain in April 1940. After a period on Fairey Battles, he was posted to Spitfires, and later to Hurricanes. He shot down his first Hun when his squadron intercepted 24 Dornier 215’s. A head-on attack was made and Me-, Intyre singled out one German and fired into it at point-blank range until he saw the front of its cockpit blown out. The Nazi went into a dive of 2000 feet on to an aerodrome it had just been bombing. Pilot Officer Mclntyre was also shot down himself. This was when he was with a section of nine Hurricanes. They intercepted about 150 Dorniers and protecting Messerschmitt 110’s over Portsmouth. After a dog fight the New Zealander found that the Messerschmitts were trying to coax him out over the Channel with a Dornier as a decoy. The Messerschmitts were above him and the Dornier below. The Huns were waiting for him to swoop on the Dornier and then to shoot him down before he could reach it. Pilot Officer Mclntyre tried to bluff the Messerschmitts. He put his nose up as though he was about to climb after them. The Messerschmitts moved up higher. But Mclntyre turned and dived on the Dornier, which began to “waggle its wings” as a signal to the fighters to come to its assistance. And whereas it had attempted to “look sick” while posing as a decoy, its health suddenly improved!

CRASH LANDING I In the race that followed the Me.s j won, and Mclntyre’s plane was badly shot about. It went into a spin and with petrol gushing over him he struggled to get it under control. In an attempt to save the plane he did not use his parachute, but tried to land. When he tried to flatten out, however, there was no “lift” in the damaged right wing, and at 1000 feet it was too late to jump. Eventually Mclntyre crash landed in a ploughed field, and as he clambered out of the cockpit feeling ill with petrol he had swallowed, and smarting in ! several places with wounds caused by cannon shell splinters, a number of farmers came rushing up armed with shovels, pitchforks and other agricultural implements. The pilot and farmers stood staring I at one another for a few moments, Mc- ; Intyre dazed and sick. Then he rej membered that the guns were switched i on, and warned them away. An elderly farmer patted him on the back and asked him how he felt, and the New Zealander was taken to hospital, where he stayed for seven weeks. Pilot Officer G. A. Francis (Takapuna) learned to fly at New Plymouth, where his instructor was Pilot Officer G. Rogers. He reached England last September and was posted straight to Spitfires. He shot down his first Nazi when he was flying with a section of three at about 3000 feet, with clouds at about 4000 feet. Two Heinkel Ill’s were sighted and the section dived on them and put them both down. HEINKEL SHOT DOWN

His one-third was notched when he was on patrol off Scotland. A report was received that a Heinkel was making a daily dawn reconnaissance. A reception was arranged for it, and a section of three Hurricanes flew as a dawn patrol for three weeks. Eventually the Heinkel was sighted. The fighters dived on it, and under the blaze of their 24 guns it went straight into the sea. Among the other pilots who have flown on operations are Pilot Officers C. Stewart (Wellington), W. A. Middleton (Newmarket), and Sergeant Pilot W. Crawford Compton (Mission Bay). The average age of the New Zealanders in the squadron is 22, but one has the distinction of being 30—Sergeant Pilot R. J. Bullen (New Plymouth), who has been nicknamed the “oldest inhabitant.”