COOL DARING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 June 1942, Page 3

COOL DARING

DISPLAYED BY AMERICAN PARACHUTIST. CLEVER LANDING AT PORT MORESBY. (Special Australian Correspondent.) SYDNEY, June 15. When the American pilot, Lieutenant Walter Gallagher, of Boston, baled out of his fighter over Port Moresby at 25,000 feet recently he consulted his wristlet watch on the waydown, and at 5000 feet he pulled the ripcord and floated to safety. He is entitled to claim the Australian and New Zealand record for a delayed parachute jump. Gallagher’s machine was vitally hit in a combat with Zeros at a high altitude, and, with the strong wind blowing, the pilot’s only hope of descending on land was to delay pulling the ripcord till he was only a few thousand feet above the landing' field. He landed on the centre of the tarmac, while his plane crashed into the jungle five miles away.