A CLOSE CALL

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 5, 19 January 1942, Page 4

A CLOSE CALL

AIR RAID IN MALAYA SGT PILOT MORGAN'S EXPERT ENCE Ail interesting account of an air . in Malaya is given by Sgt Pilot ' C. S. Dent, in a letter to his parents in Hamilton. His exciting narrative gives details of a narrow escape by his friend and co-pilot Sgt Pilot Hamilton Morgan, who is a son of Mir Morgan; Whakatane Clerk of Court. The letter reads: — "I've been in one really big raid —at the wrong end of the bombs and after it was all over we had to laugh at the many funny incidents. Just before the planes came over I was having a heated argument with Dick Rainger as to where was the best place to take cover. He said to make for the rice fields, and I stood up for an air raid trench near the aerodrome. When the attack came [ was about twenty yards from my / trench and he was. out in the open still arguing. I covered my twenty yards in one leap, and a bomb burst near Dick and a piece of shrapnel *| neatly skinned his nose, and he broke all records covering a hunrlred yards to a trench and passed nn Aussie, who was a noted runner, like a bullet. Ham Morgan was on duty sitting at a desk, and a bomb burst about 30 yards from him. As he jumped for a window shrapnel blew his chair to bits and the blast caught him in full flight and blew him clean through the window into a trench outside. Neither he nor I received a scratch, only our stomachs misbehaved—but that is merely caused by the nervous shock of the first blitz. Another lad dived under a bush and found himself tangled up with a big black snake; he paid as much attention to it as a bit o£ string, likewise the snake, they each had their own troubles." This description was of one of the first Japanese raids on Malaya, four days after Japan's entry into the war.