NOTED AVIATOR

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 845, 13 December 1929, Page 11

NOTED AVIATOR

WAR RECORD OF CAPTAIN HARKNESS daring and popular flyer An ex-student of the Canterbury Engineering College, Captain U. E. Harkness, pilot of the Dornier-Libelle on her ill-fated flight last evening, a war flyer an excellent re» When he enlisted ho secured a position with the Royal Naval Air Force in England, and was assigned to the dangerous and exciting task of guarding the shores of the Homeland against Zeppelin attacks. A raid into enemy territory earned for him the Distinguished Service Cross. This had as its object the bombing of a Zeppelin shed, and is described in a letter to relatives. “Two of us got up at about 1.30 in readiness for an early start for the hornet's nest at Brussels,” he wrote. All the time I kept a sharp lookout for Zeps, but saw none. Later 1 did the same, and when at a height of about 9,000 ft., and nearly over the great Zep shed at Evero, found myself watching a wonderful panorama below. BOMBING ZEP. SHEDS. “The other machine had evidently already arrived, for I saw a bomb burst beyond one end of the shed. Almost -it the same instant another burst at that end of the roof, for I saw a hole from which a great deal of black smoke at once emerged. One or two bombs I saw burst just beyond the other end of the shed, and several more must have burst right in it, for there were huge rolls of smoke pouring from the far end. Then came my turn, but the archies had already picked me up and were putting up shells all round the sky. I glided straight across the shed below, a huge