Veteran Dominion Airmen Fly With Famous Squadron

Taranaki Daily News, 31 August 1942, Page 4

Veteran Dominion Airmen Fly With Famous Squadron

N.Z.E.F. Official War Correspondent.

Western Desert, Aug. 26. Three New Zealanders. two of them veterans of fighter sweeps over France, are now flying Spitfires over the Western Desert in the famous iCounty of London Squadron. ! One of them, who coinmands a flight ;in the squadron, has already shot down i two Junkers 88's in desert operations. j All three have taken part in many raids over the E1 Alamein line | Flight-Lieutenant M. R. B. Ingram, .Dunedin, fiew in about 40 fighter sweeps and bomber escorts over France and was 'on convoy patrols off the English coast before he joined the County of London Squadron on its way to Malta. After 'about two months on the island fortress he fiew to the Western Desert, where his successes against two German recon- ' naissance planes brought his total score | to five destroyed and two or three damiaged and probables. Both Junkers 88's i which he attacked at about 25,000 feet, j were reported by the army to have been shot down behind the E1 Alamein line before he returned to his landing ground. iHe has a total of about 650 flying hours, including 200 hours on operations. 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 Spitflre Squadron in England. Pilot Officer Frecklington joined the Royal Air Force in 1940, and finished his training in time to be given the Manawatu Spitflre in the newly formed squadron. In his first raids across the Channel he flew behind Wing-Commander E. P. Wells, D.S.O., D.F.C. and bar, who now commands the New Zealand Squadron. Between June and September of last year Pilot Officer Frecklington was in 32 sweeps and bomber escorts over France, flying in every operation the squadron made. He was commissioned and posted to Aden before beginning operational flying again early this year. His experience with Spitfires gained him a place in the County of London Squadron— the old peacetime squadron which fought through the Battle of Britain. The third New Zealander is a well known Wellington racing cyclist, Sergeant A. R. Sowerby, Johnsonville. Sergeant Sowerby left England in April to begin his operational flying with the squadron. Duriiig his five months' training in Canada he was one of the fiyst 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 of opening his score. The greatest sight he has seen in the Middle East, says Sergeant Sowerby, was the arrival of New Zealand troops 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 Do■ninions, as well as South Americans and >ne American from Texas who joined up n Canada.