VIVID ACCOUNT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 84, Issue 178, 31 July 1940, Page 6

VIVID ACCOUNT

RAIDS OVER GERMANY BOMBER’S CHARMED LIFE I British Official Wireless, j Received July 30, 5.5 p.m. RUGBY, July 29. In a broadcast, a young Canadian pilot who has served with an R.A.F. bomber squadron since the beginning of the war said: “My last raid —a few days ago—was my 34th sortie against the enemy. It is a rather remarkable thing that in the course of all those operations my aircraft was hit only once. That was at Bergent when we were after a couple of German cruisers. "A good many times I would have sworn the aircraft must have been absolutely riddled —the anti-aircraft fire was coming so close all around us, but when he got back there was not a mark on it. “On this 34th raid we managed to bring off quite a decent effort. Our target was at Hamburg. We got over the city all right, but there was a lot of low cloud about, and we could not find our objective. So we went up to Wilhelmshaven. We were after the docks there. On the way to Wilhelmshaven we increased our height. Then, when we got close enough to reach it in a glide, I gradually closed the throttle and dropped. By this time we were pretty well on the target. We dived and let go our bombs. They sailed right across the corner of the largest dock. Escape from Barrage,

"They put up a heavy anti-aircraft barrage, of course —down below tne tracer —then on top of that, bursting all over the place, the heavier stull. When it is concentrated it shoots up at you as though it is coming out oi the mouth of a volcano, but mat was one of the 33 times we did not get hit. The barrage was pretty intense, but to my mind a target like that is relatively easy compared with locating and attacking, say, a factory in me Ruhr. For one thing, it is bigger and stands out better, and for anomer you get away out to open sea when you have bombed, and you have not got to cross a whole lot of enemy country. Don’t think 1 mean by that that we are at all shy about going in»o the Ruhr. They get a pretty good pasting there most nights in the week. "On these trips it is a grand thing to know you have got a good crew to back you up. I’ve been lucky there. Right from the start 1 kept tne same crew up to the time I left the squadron, except for the second pilot. He was with me until about live weeks’ ago. Then they made him captain of an aircraft wnh a crew of his own. Me was a Canadian, too, and came from Calgary. Of the crew of six two were Canadians, two Scotsmen and the other two Englishmen, so we were a pretty representative lot. One Scotsmen had such a strong accent that ar times, until I got useu to him, I could not understand what he was saying. The other one was not nearly so bad so 1 used to get him to interpret.

“The first time we flew over enemy territory was back in winter when we did leaflet dropping. That seems a very long time ago now. In between there has been the Norwegian business, then followed the invasion of the Low Countries and we were operating there, and after that we were working in direct support of the Allied land forces in the attempt to hold up the German advance into France. More recently, we have been concentrating on Germany itself. We have! given them something to think about, there is no doubt doubt about that. Most Spectacular Effort. "During the operations over France we had what was probably our most spectacular effort. We were attacking enemy depots and troop concentrations in the area around Hirson. We saw another of our bombers getting heavily fired at from some woods, so we thought we had better go and have a look. Having spotted machinegun posts where the fire was zoming from, we silenced four of them. Then we hit ammunition stores or a petrol dump with a couple of bombs. That sent the whole works up. Every now and then on the way back my windscreen was lit up .by the light of another explosion. By the time the last went off we were two miles away.”