RAID OVER GERMANY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 December 1939, Page 6

RAID OVER GERMANY

NEW ZEALANDER IN DOG FIGHT. “We wene on a raid over Germany at a height of 27,000 feet and a distance of 30 miles in enemy territory,” writes a young New Zealand pilot to his father. “We had just reached our objective when the German Messerschmitts arrived. There seemed to be' hundreds, but actually there were eighteen, and only six of us. so we we had a good old dogfight. Our main object was to get home intact, so we kept in close formation, defending with rear guns. We got four of them. Our tanks were set alight by incendiary bullets, but my gunner stuck to his post till the last and we managed to shoot a fighter down in flames. Of course it all happened so quickly that I can’t remember exactly. Anyway I told my crew to get out, and after a terrific struggle with my hood. I managed to get cut myself. I pulled the mechanic on to his back and so enabled him. to fall clear. In the process of getting out however, my “Irons” were burnt off, and my legs were rather badly burnt, also my hands, face, and neck, and that was all. I pulled my 'chute at about 18,000 feet and after a rather scaring descent, landed with a terrific bump half a mile from the line on French territory and knocked myself out.

“When I came to, there were French soldiers all round me with rifles and they seemed to take me for a German, but I explained, at length, who I was and they started to kiss me, which was embarrassing. They took me to a clearing station and dressed the burns, and by that time I was feeling a very sick man. Finally I got to a French hospital where there were six other survivors. We stayed there for two days and then were shipped 150 miles across France to an R.A.F. hospital, here I stayed for a week. Came across to England in a hospital aeroplane and have been here in Sussex ever since.”