VARIED SERVICE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20875, 29 August 1942, Page 4

VARIED SERVICE

DOMINION PILOTS IN FAMOUS SQUADRON MIDDLE EAST THEATRE (By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright.) (N.Z.E.P. Official War Correspondent.) (2 p.m.) WESTERN DESERT. Aug. 22. Three New Zealanders, two of them veterans of fighter sweeps over France, are now flying Spitfires over the Western Desert in the famous County of London Squadron. One of them who commands a flight in the squadron lias already shot down two Junkers 88s in desert operations. All three have taken part in many raids over the Alamein line. Flight Lieutenant M. R. B. Ingram, of Dunedin, flew in about 40 fighter

sweeps and bomber escorts in France and was also on convoy patrols off the Engilsh coast before he joined the County of London Squadron on its way to Malta. After about two months on the island fortress, he flew to the Western Desert, where his successes against two German reconnaissance planes brought his total score to five destroyed and two or three damaged probables. Both the Junkers 88s, which he attacked at about 25,000 ft.. were reported by the army to be shot down behind the Alamein line before he returned to his landing ground.

Flying with Flight Lieutenant Ingram is Pilot Officer L. J. Frecklington, a Manawatu farmer, who was one of the original members of the New Zealand Spitfire Squadron in England. He joined the Royal Air Force in May, 1940. and finished his training in time to be given the Manawatu Spitfire in the newlyformed squadron. In his first raids across the Channel he flew behind Wing Commander Wells, D. 5.0., D.F.C. and bar, who now commands a New Zealand squadron. Between June and September last year, Pilot Officer Frecklington was in 32 sweeps and bomber escorts over France, flying in every operation the squadron made in six weeks. He was commissioned and posted to Aden before beginning flying again early this year. His experience with Spitfires gained him a place in the County of London Squadron—-the old peacetime squaddon which fought through the Battleof Britain.

The third New Zealander is the well known Wellington racing cyclist. Sergeant Pilot A. R. Sowerby. of Johnsonville. He left England in April to begin his operational flying with the squadron. During his five months’ training in Canada he was one of the first New Zealand pilots to visit New York and Ottawa. The lull on the front and the decrease in enemy air activity has given him little opportunity to open his score. The greatest sight he has seen in the Middle East, he says, was the arrival of the New Zealand trooos in the desert during the .time .the squadron was moving back two months ago. Like most Royal Air Force fighter squadrons in the desert, the County of London includes men from all the Dominions as well as a South American and one American from Texas, who joined up ir. Canada.