NEW PACIFIC UNIT

Waikato Times, Volume 132, Issue 22137, 8 September 1943, Page 4

NEW PACIFIC UNIT

DIVE-BOMBERS FROM DOMINION STEP IN OFFENSIVE ACTION (By Telegraph —Press Association) DUNEDIN, Tuesday A further step in preparations by the Royal New Zealand Air Force for offensive action against the Japanese was announced by the Minister of Defence, the Hon. F. Jones, today, when he stated that dive-bomb-er squadrons, using Douglas Dauntless machines, were being formed in the Dominion and that actual training operations were well under way. “New Zealand air crew and ground personnel of the R.N.Z.A.F.,” the Minister said, “have for some time been undergoing courses of instruction at a North Island station in the operation and maintenance of divebombers. The aircraft are Douglas Dauntless machines, which have been employed particularly with American air services in the Pacific with outstanding success. The training is sufficiently far advanced to show that the New Zealand personnel will be as successful in the operation of dive-bombers as they have been with other types of aircraft overseas.” “For obvious reasons,” Mr Jones said, “I cannot say just when and where these aircraft will be employed against the Japanese. It is our plan to send forward new squadrons, such as dive-bomber and torpedo-bombei squadrons, and to re-equip our bomber and fighter squadrons with newer and better types of aircraft.”