EYES ON DEFENUE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 39, 15 January 1943, Page 6

EYES ON DEFENUE

Official War Correspondent Guadalcanar, Dec. 20. On the hard-won and grimly held island of Guadalcanar, still marked by the scars of the fierce, battles fought to recapture it and still the foremost bastion of the United Nations in the South Pacific, air crews and ground staff of the Royal New Zealand Air Force are playing an active part alongside their United States allies. As the first Dominion unit to go into direct action against the Japanese since the fall of the East. Indies, the New Zealanders have been entrusted with special tasks, such as patrols and reconnaissance, which in areas outside the actual battle zone tend towards monotonous, uneventful routine. Here, however, those same tasks have been spiced with exciting incident. Acting as the eyes of Guadalcanp ar, New Zealand aircraft, have on several occasions observed and reported Japanese naval movements and guided American air striking forces to the attack. In the course of their routine patrols the New Zea'anders themselves have opened a scoreboard of. Japanese losses, which includes two float planes destroyed. On occasions they have met anti-aircraft fire and lighter opposition; one crew, by sound teamwork and adroit airmanship, fought off three Zeros in a 17-min-utc running bottle.

They brought to the combat zone the experience of many -weeks' longrange ocean flying and navigation in operations carried, out from a less advanced base. Within fewer than 24 hours of their arrival here, the first machine had flown on its first task, with immediate success in reporting a Japanese force. A prize of a bottle of liquor set by their commanding officer for the. first. Japanese aircraft destroyed fell within a few days to a Stratford officer, Pilot-Officer J. G. Gordon, and his crew, who flew out of cloud above an enemy seaplane base and machine gunned a float plane on the water, setting it ablaze. Then, with one motor out of commission through damage by anti-aircraft fire, they made a remarkable 140-mile flight, back to base, landing in darkness after a long detour around a "front'' of. bad weather. A second float plane, lias been destroyed since then by an aircraft captained by Flying-Officer lan Burgess. These clyilk marks on the scoreboard, it should be pointed out, were only incidental to the New Zealanders.' primary tasks. Behind them still arc long and often uneventful hours of flying, bringing thousands of miles of ocean under surveillance- against hostile movements. Behind them, too, arc the long hours spent on the. machines by the men of the ground staff, who work under inevitable difficulties to keep them ready for the air. ''They are our unsung heroes," a pilot said.