DEAD AS DOORNAILS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 114, 18 May 1942, Page 2

DEAD AS DOORNAILS

‘ SEVEN NASTY YELLOW MEN. i 1 NEW ZEALAND PILOT’S FEAT. “They tell me 1 shot down the first aeroplane in Burma—it was a beautiful, big, bouncing bomber, containing seven nasty little yellow men, all oi whom were as dead as doornails.” This is the justifiably proud claim of Sergeant Pilot G. A. Williams, of Napier, in a letter to his relatives in Napier. Two Royal Air Force machines, one piloted by Sergeant Williams, were on patrol over Burma when they came across what, he describes as a “shower of Japanese bombers” near their home airport. The pair went into action, but became separated and only because he ran out of ammunition did he have to leave the attack and return to his aerpdrome. In this, his first raid, he also “bruised” (to use his own term) four more machines, which he left with long trails of petrol pouring out, so it was unlikely that they made their base. “Dreams that I 'had been dreaming for the last two years were realised all at once,” he said, after describing the action. The letter ends on a note of advice: “Should bombs start falling keep under cover in a trench, because it is the spreading splinters which cause the casualties. In the first raid on Rangoon 1100 people were killed and about the same number injured because the people stood round to see what was happening. They learned their lesson and in the second raid, when everyone kept under cover, there were only nine killed and a very few injured.”