CRASH IN THE DESERT
PILOT’S THIRTEENTH RAID ' WHOLE CREW ESCAPES INJURY GISBORNE, Feb. 7. “For once in my life No. 13 let me down." writes a Gisborne pilot-officer . on duty with a bomber squadron in ; the Middle East, describing a crash in , the desert a few days before Christ- | mas. The occasion, his thirteenth raid, : was not as unlucky as it might have been, for the entire crew escaped with only a few bruises, in spite of the fact that the machine caught fire before a forced landing was completed. “We had engine trouble, and one motor gave out completely,” the pilot-officer writes. “As we were only at 1500 ft„ it was impossible to main tain height, on one engine, and consequently we crashed in the desert. When we hit the ground, everything was engulfed in a cloud of dust. Later when we took stock of ourselves we were simply smothered in dust. “The machine caught fire before we actually stopped ploughing our way through the ground. Luckily everybody got out, but it was impossible to save anything, because of the danger of the petrol tanks exploding.” They walked for seven hours that night to a main road, where they were picked up by an army van, which took them to an Air Force station.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WC19410210.2.4
Bibliographic details
Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 85, Issue 34, 10 February 1941, Page 2
Word Count
215CRASH IN THE DESERT Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 85, Issue 34, 10 February 1941, Page 2
Using This Item
NZME is the copyright owner for the Wanganui Chronicle. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of NZME. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in