N.Z. SOLDIERS INJURED

Southland Times, Issue 24244, 30 September 1940, Page 4

N.Z. SOLDIERS INJURED

FIRST CASUALTIES OF 2ND ECHELON

BOMB BURSTS NEAR MILITARY BUS

(From Official War Correspondent) ENGLAND, September 27.

The 2nd Echelon’s first casualties in enemy action were sustained today when an aerial bomb burst 15 feet ahead of a full bus containing members of the Auckland Battalion. The bus was overturned and two men were slightly wounded in the face and thigh respectively. The bus was returning from a swimming parade. The bomb was one of several dropped in a south-eastern town when a formation of 16 enemy planes heading towards London was broken up by anti-aircraft guns and British fighters. Two of the raiders suffered severely at the hand of British fighters. One German pilot who landed his machine intact, but himself was badly wounded, was captured and rushed to hospital by members of the Wellington Battalion. During the same fight a member of a composite battalion formed from reinforcements with the 2nd Echelon was severely, but not dangerously, wounded in the face by a fragment of antiaircraft shell. A sergeant and private who were close at hand when another bomb burst which entombed a number of civilians earned high praise from the civilians for their instant and energetic rescue work.