SUBMARINE BOMBED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 October 1939, Page 6

SUBMARINE BOMBED

NEW ZEALAND PILOT’S EXPLOIT. LATER FORCED LANDING AT SEA. It seems probable that a former New Plymouth man, Pilot Officer Heslop Barnitt, son of Mr and Mrs F. H. Barnitt, of Devon Street. New Plymouth, was the pilot of the first aeroplane successfully to bomb a German submarine. Pilot Officer Barnitt’s exploit took place early on the morning of Tuesday, September 5.

In a letter to his parents Pilot Officer Barnitt tells of the exploit, and in a subsequent letter of how his machine some days later made a forced landing on the sea near Dunquerke, France.

“I am in charge of One machine with a crew of four,” he wrote in the first letter. “Yesterday morning we were patrolling over the sea from dawn until 10 o’clock. It was very misty and we suddenly came ‘across a German submarine on the surface, no doubt waiting for British commercial shipping.

“Ours was the only machine in the sky and we were on this U-boat in no time. It submerged in a matter of seconds and was under the water by the time we had dived down upon it with our bomb. But that did not matter, as our bombs explode under the water at a certain depth, like a depth-charge in the navy. I guess everyone knows that much,' so I am not giving away any secrets.

“It was a good aim, and I don’t think that submarine will do any damage to our passenger ships now. You cannot be absolutely certain whether you have sunk a submarine or not. I and the fellows I fly with were congratulated by the C.O. for a good morning’s work. • “During the last few days life has not been dull.” he wrote in the second letter. “Pilot Officer Kean, the New Zealander with whom I fly, and I left on Saturday evening to do a patrol over the sea at 6 o’clock. We had to fly about 400 miles out to sea, out of sight of land from the time we left the station until we arrived back again.” All went well until they arrived back at where they judged the station to bo by dead reckoning navigation, he added. There was low cloud down almost to the ground. They did not dare go down below the cloud. They asked the course over the radio, but were given the exact reciprocal or opposite of the course needed.

“It soon became obvious that the courses they gave us were wrong, but I stuck to the course, as there was certainly nothing else to do.” Pilot-Officer Barnitt continued. “Eventually when our petrol was getting short we passed over a lightship and decided to land on the water by its light (no easy matter). “We landed and yelled out to the ship for a boat, which was not long in coming. So we took as much valuable stuff from the aeroplane as we could and took it on board the ship. The people from the ship spoke French and we found we were quite near Dunquerke, in France. They thought we were Germans at first. “Of course, the aeroplane is lost, but no one seems to worry about it. The French Navy looked after us and got us ashore from the lightship. Next morning we travelled on a cargo steamer to Folkestone. Needless to say we created quite a lot of interest at the wharves carrying around such things as machine guns and 800 rounds of ammunition. wireless sets and parachutes and compasses and whatnot. (We dropped our bombs in the Channel before landing.)

“We arrived back at our aerodrome after being away 48 hours. It is quite an interesting war so far. None of us is to blame for what happened. It turns out that a book should have been altered two years ago changing the bearing, but this was not done. All that has been said to us is praise for the way we put the machine down in the sea under very difficult conditions and managed to save most of the equipment.”