“CAT AND MOUSE”

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20110, 2 December 1939, Page 4

“CAT AND MOUSE”

BRITAIN AND THE WAR COUNTERING EVERY MOVE KIEL RAID DIVERSION GISBORNE FLIER WRITES “Many of the fellows feel that this war will be over soon after Christmas. It is such a curious sort of war, with Britain playing ‘cat and mouse,’ just waiting and calculating every move the enemy can make, and countering it at once. So far our salients on the Western Front have suffered no attacks, and though the French have had several, they have beaten them off successfully. To-day the Western Front is a great mud pool, with the Germans occupying most of the mud.” These observations, contained in a letter to his parents from Leading Aircraftsman J. H. Langridge, son of Mr. and Mrs. A. Langridge, Gisborne, reflects the feeling of confidence with which the forces of Britain face the immediate future. His conviction that the war will not last long is also reflected in another comment, which is to the effect that a friend in New Zealand who has joined up will have to hurry, as the war might not wait for him.

“We have been on no raids since the Kiel Canal episode, and at the moment everything is very quiet, wailing for what? I don’t know. But Hitler is running round in everdecreasing circles. His U-boats have done their share of damage, but our ‘anti’ campaign has been very effective,” the ex-Gisborne pilot writes.

British Planes Superior

“Even though we are on the scene of operations, we know little more than the newspapers are allowed to tell, and in that way we are really not much better off than you. There have been no raids over England that one could call raids, although the Firth of Forth has had a visit or two. Those were pretty half-hearted attempts; well, not exactly halfhearted, but unsuccessful. Apart from some casualties, the raid was definitely a failure, and from information received from captive airmen, and the evidence of machines shot down, our planes are superior in manoeuvrability. There is some satisfaction in that.

“London has had one or two false alarms so far, but the people have got over the nervous tension that was the worst part of the declaration. Life goes on now, despite sandbagged shelters, hospitals and monuments, more or less as before.

“Food prices have gone up, and petrol is pooled, with a decided drop in quality. Normally it is Is 5d per gallon, but now it is Is Bd, and poor stuff. My allowance is five gallons per month, with extra for going to and from work at the, field.”

As a member of. one of the flights which carried out the raid on the Kiel Canal at the outbreak of the war, Leading Aircraftsman Langridge is inclined to deprecate the value of the operations as a test of airmanship.

"A.A. Guns Rather Terrifying”

“There were a lot of planes in the raid, and Kiel, Brunsbutel, and Wilhelmshaven came under the influence of our bombs. About 20 or 30 planes, over a period of 48 hours, made continuous raids, the first starting about 4 p.m. or 5 p.m. on the day of the declaration of war,” he writes. “Our raid took off at 0 p.m., and we got back at 10.30 o’clock. It is now black as pitch over Great Britain at night, and it takes good navigation to find the base again without wireless assistance.

“The A.A. guns are rather terrifying, but as the weather was terrible, we had little fear of fighter attack or A.A. fire. The lightning was terrific, and apart from seeing one fighter and one U-boat, the journey was just a raid, and not worthy of much attention. The pilots have flown harder exercises in peace-time. Still, the entry ‘Raid on German Fleet’ looks good in the log-book.

“Since that raid we have done nothing more than shift our base to the “Somewhere in England” aerodromes, and do one or two reconnaissance flights over the North Sea. The King paid our aerodrome a visit last week, to collectively thank the crews for our part in the Kiel raid.

“I seem to be having all the luck, so far as the New Zealand flight is concerned, for I have been to Paris, to Marseilles twice, and have now had this experience of a visit from the King which the other chaps seem not to have witnessed. All the New Zealanders here are leading aircraftsmen of the first flight, and that is really a big step up over here.”