NIGHT RAID

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 52, Issue 32316, 20 September 1943, Page 7

NIGHT RAID

ATTACK ON SOLOMONS ENEMY AT GUARDALCANAR NEW ZEALANDERS IN PACIFIC GUADALCANAR. New Zealand airmen on Guadalcanal* are, for the most part, now thoroughly used to enemy air raids. Some of the older inhabitants, who have been experiencing raids at the rate of perhaps half a dozen to ten a month, are so used to the wailing siren that

no matter what hour the attack may occur, they arrive promptly in the shelters, complete with steel helmfet and respirator, but with a minimum of fuss and confusion.

It is the newcomer who is most impressed. New Zealand personnel is constantly changing, according to service requirements, and almost invariably. when the raiders appear, it is somebody's first experience. The old hands are tolerant and helpful, and the newcomer, after a week or so. finds himself, in the middle of a raid, more or less casually comparing the latest attack with the one a few days earlier, and drawing comfort from his continued survival.

Yet months of raids —they occur without fail round full moon—have not lessened the hearty respect felt by one and all for Japanese bombs, nor have they decreased the precautions taken. The immunity of the New Zealanders from air raid injuries is due largely to the careful preparations made to meet raid hazards, and to the strictly enforced order that prevents the foolhardy from emerging from shelters during raids merely to satisfy their curiosity. As a recent order said: “To be injured uselessly is no assistance to the war effort.” Moonlight Attacks Brilliantly clear nights, with the moon round and bright, and the stars shining more vividly than they are ever seen in New Zealand, are nearly always chosen by the Japanese for their raids. Sometimes they occur early in the evening, when the moan of the siren interrupts the screening of films at New Zealand camps, and sometimes they are much later and the warning brings all ranks from their beds for an early-morning trip to the shelters. There is comfort in the healthy roar of the night lighters that take off from nearby fields to intercept the raiders. The slim outline can be easily distinguished as the ; fighters go aloft, and every man’s hopes go with them, for these single-seaters have an enviable number of enemy night-

raiders to their credit. From somewhere in the night sky, so distant that it is vaguely sensed rather than heard, conies the typical beat of the enemy’s deliberately unsynchronised motors. Searchlights send their fingers groping for the Japanese, and their violent brilliance makes even the moon look pale. The beams sweep to and fro over one particular patch of sky, and then steady, in a pyramid of light, with the r.-filer, like a silver moth, impaled in their tip.

Anti-aircraft guns go into action with an ear-splitting crack. Men Gii'.k instinctively as they hear the shells whistling up, and then watch the bursts. They cannot help a relnc ant admiration of the enemy pilot's impertinence, foy often he will fly right through a barrage. Sometimes the

guns turn him back and it becomes a race between the target and the searchlights, as he speeds for safety in the dark.

New Zealanders have seen, on several occasions, a raider break through a. barrage, and have wondered why the guns have suddenly stopped. Closing For The Kill

They have listened for the whistle of falling bombs, and have heard instead the surging rush of the nightfighter, closing for the kill. The raider shows clearly, firmly held by the searchlights, and a spurt of tracer, bright red against the black sky, tells that the American pilot is within range. Burst after burst is pumped into the raider, and Spontaneous yells of delight come from a thousand foxholes as a growing flare tells that another Japanese bomber will not be going home. Not all the raiders are shot down. The New Zealanders have heard the warning swish of bombs, have felt the earth .shake, and have seen a great curtain of fire rise from the ground as heavy bombs have struck. They have seen, and heard, dive-bombers. They have seen Zeros, ground strafing, low enough to ruffle the coconut palms with the wind of their passing;

but. injuries among Dominion personnel have been practically nil. Thus it is that, in spite of accurate published accounts and communiques recording attacks on Guadalcanal’, airmen’s letters of assurance should be accepted at their face value by relatives back in the Dominion. Every possible precaution for the airmen's safety is taken, and to such good effect that each month's spell of raids brings little more than a spate of letters assuring relatives that “Tojo was over, but we’re still here!”