PILOTS’ REPORTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 January 1940, Page 5

PILOTS’ REPORTS

AN UNEVENTFUL JOURNEY MANY TOWNS WELL LIT. VIENNA AND PRAGUE VISITED. RUGBY, January 13. The evening newspapers enthussiastically record the Royal Air Force flight over Austria and Bohemia, and reports from pilots received later claim great attention. The flight occupied about nine hours, and, in spite of the low temperatures, the later reports state, the crews suffered little from the cold, one pilot saying: “If anything, we were a little too warm.”

The flight, which so far is the outstanding leaflet raid of the war. started from French aerodromes, and the first town sighted by the pilots was one brilliantly lit somewhere on the Swiss border. Passing out into Germany, the aircraft split into two sections, one bound for Vienna and the other for Prague. The difference in the efficiency of

the black-out between Germany on the one hand and Austria and Bohemia on the other was especially noticeable, many members of the aircraft crews remarking upon the ease with which the Austrian towns could be picked up by the lighting. One pilot said: “We could even see the headlights of cars moving along the roads.” Vienna was easily identified by the lights and river, and the aircraft, having dropped their leaflets, turned for home. On the way this section passed over a large town, believed to be Linz, and set a course for Frankfurt.

The only event on the journey home was when oite aircraft passed through a searchlight beam. The course was quickly altered and the machines were far away before anti-aircraft guns could open fire.

Equally uneventful was the journey of the Prague section, one pilot saying: “We were expecting things io happen all the time. They never did. We were not fired at.”

This section noticed that Munich, which was fairly well lit on the outward journey, was well blacked-out when they returned.

The engines of the aeroplanes behaved extremely well. "We could have gone on another five days,” was how one pilot put it.