BOMBS OVER GERMANY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 226, 16 October 1940, Page 3

BOMBS OVER GERMANY

Writing to his parents in Greymouth, from an .aerodrome "somewhere in England, 50 an officer of the New Zealand Heavy Bomber Squadron tells a thrilling story of his experiences over Germany. Referring to a night raid, he says: "We left — in reasonably fine weather, which continued to remain so until we were nearing the Dutch coast. There we ran into violent thunderstorms, and spent some time trying to climb up through the clouds to a safe height away from the lightning. The latter is not very pleasant when you are sitting on top of a ton and a half of high explosive, as well as a lot of petrol. However, we climbed pretty sluggishly, and only succeeded in getting iced up, a thing we fear more than balloons, which take first place from anti-aircraft fire and fighters. We were lucky, though, and beyond having, the breech-blocks of the ma-chine-guns iced, our controls and carburettors remained free. "Over the Ruhr and just past the Rhine/ the weather began to"clear, and beyond the fact that we knew the Ruhr was smothered in balloons, which were still a good deal higher than we were, we began to brighten up too ; . However,, the break in the weather allowed searchlights to come through and pin-point us for the pals in the ack-ack gun crews. Consequently, we had a warm few minutes until we reached another cloud layer. They still flung up shells, but the shooting was wild without the lights, and is always, so long as you remember to fool the sound-track recorders. "Around Bremen, which is another dangerous balloon area, Ave ran into clear moonlight, dozens of searchlights, and thousands of anti-air-craft guns. Bremen is a tough spot. I was flying the old crate over there a week ago, a|nd it. took me 23 minutes to get out of searchlight and ack-ack. However, Ave dodged this, and continued toAvards Hamburg, an e\ r en hotter spot. Our target Avas an aerodrome just to the south of Hamburg, and Ave decided to pay them a courtesy call. We dived from 8000 ft to 3000 ft and let them have six of the best. I hope they all had earache after the bang, as one cannot miss from 3000 ft."