TRAP FOR AIRMAN

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21185, 7 August 1940, Page 9

TRAP FOR AIRMAN

“COBBER” KAIN AND DECOY MET 50 MESSERSCHMITTS (By Telegraph.—special to Times) WELLINGTON, Tuesday An experience of the late FlyingOfficer Kain is described in a letter from Second-Lieutenant E. D. Blundell, of the 19th (Wellington) Battallion, who writes: “The British pilots had a great respect for him and some of them had had personal experience in Flanders. One tale they tell I will repeat here in case his family has not heard it. “Kain was returning from a patrol when he noticed below him an unescorted Junkers bomber of the older type. He suspected some trap, but the target was too tempting and he dived at it. Almost at once a red light went up from the bomber and then Kain knew for sure it was a trap. He pulled his Hurricane out of a dive and climbed almost vertically back into the clouds. Above these he ran into about 50 Messerschmitts. One of these he shot down and then beat it, succeeding in returning only slightly wounded, although his aeroplane was full of bullet holes.

“If at the present time, and certainly very much against their wishes, our fellows on land are doing little, New Zealand pilots are making a name for themselves, as indeed, are pilots from other Dominions. I gather that almost any Royal Air Force squadron now has a good leavening of Dominion pilots. I learn from high Royal Air Force sources that the ratio of losses, three and four to one, claimed by the papers is quite correct. It is a happy augury for the time when we have as many aeroplanes as the enemy.”