AT WORK AGAIN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 June 1941, Page 6

AT WORK AGAIN

AS IN GREAT WAR DAYS THE FAMOUS DOVER PATROL FIGHTING AND “ODD JOBS.” YOUNGSTERS WHO ARE SEEING LIFE. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day. 12.40 p.m.) LONDON, June 20. The Dover Patrol, which won fame in the Great War, is again carrying on its good work, on which some light was thrown for the first time by a British United Press correspondent, Mr Harold Dingman, who says the patrol is mostly composed of youngsters who think their life one of the finest in the world. They have been shelled, bombed, machine-gunned and mined, but work, day and night, sweeping up mines, doing rescue work, charting old wrecks/ finding new ones and doing any odd job. Some days pass uneventfully. On others, shells come shrieking from France or dive-bombers hurtle from the skies. The patrol has brought down many raiders. Mr Dingman says he spent a day on a little ship, which ploughed up and down the Straits, doing repairs which might mean the saving of a British or German pilot who had crashed into the sea. A steel ladder is attached to every buoy, so that a pilot can climb safely, while lashed to every wreck, jutting up from the water, are water, food, whisky, cigarettes and even clothing. The Germans recently launched big steel rafts containing a chamber with supplies sufficient to keep several men alive for several days. There was even a wireless signalling set. If the raft is found broken from its moorings, it is taken to port lor investigation, then repaired, reprovisioned and dropped again into the sea.