UNLUCKY NUMBER

Waikato Times, Volume 128, Issue 21336, 6 February 1941, Page 10

UNLUCKY NUMBER

CRASH IN DESERT' OCCASION OF 13th RAID (By Telegraph.—special to Times) GISBORNE, Wednesday “ 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 Christmas. 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 maintain 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 v/ere 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.