KAIN’S CAREER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 June 1940, Page 3

KAIN’S CAREER

NEARLY TURNED DOWN BY R.A.F.

APTER GOING TO ENGLAND AT OWN EXPENSE.

STORY OF EARLY SUCCESSES

"An odd scrap. A stray Mess got above me and persuaded me to become a member of the Caterpillar ‘Chib.’’ That’s the characteristic letter I’ve just had from friend Cobber Kain, dismissing in a few words his latest epic light with nine German machines, states a writer in the "Sunday Post, Glasgow, on April 7. And if it reads double-Dutch to you. just remember a Mess is that old friend, the Messerschmitt fighter. And that a member of the Caterpillar Club can only be an R.A.F. pilot who has been forced to jump for it by the parachute route when his machine has caught more than it can stomach.

In other words, Cobber Kain was forced to "make a hop" or "bail out in the slang of the Royal Air Force. Not a line from him about the two machines he first brought down before the "stray” caught him on the hop. Not a word about that thrilling adventure when he landed in No Man’s Land and came within an ace of finding' himself in a German prison camp.

“FAIR DINKUM SCRAP.”

I'm not surprised at the omissions. I'm used to them. For Cobber is not precisely a dab hand at "shooting a line,” as they say in the R.A.F. when a fellow begins to spread himself. All the letters I have had from this looselimbed New Zealand giant of 21 have borne the same hallmarks of brevity and wit. So far. he tops the poll of R.A.F. aces by bagging five, if not six. German scalps. (His latest tally is over 49). But each success is dismissed with a good-humoured -shrug of the pen. "A fair dinkum scrap" was all he could find to say about the grand scrap a month ago, when ho won ihe D.F.C. Nothing about the award. Nothing about his luck in scraping home alive after his disabled machine caught fire thirty miles behind the Siegfried Line. “Tin off the mark," was his sole comment when, on his 21st birthday last November, he brought down his first machine in the highest aerial battle ever.

From the first day his squadron landed in France fellow-pilots were predicting Flying Officer Edgar James Kain, from Wellington. New Zealand, was going to give Goerings boys something to chew over. "If he lives long enough," they added thoughtfully. For they wondered whether his dash, his desire to get at the enemy at all costs, did not lead him to take too many risks. But Cobber has shown his tremendous dash and zest has nothing reckless about it. Slow, easygoing on terra firma, the lad s transformed directly he’s strapped in the cockpit. Then he and his Hurricane are as a piece of quicksilver, darting into the attack with daring, unexpected manoeuvres, acting on the split second with never a mistake. Mebbe I’m prejudiced, but to my mind Cobber has always been marked out for an unusual destiny. I made up my mind on that, point five seconds after we first met. Here was a lad ’way out of yhe ordinary, I thought. I was judging solely by his appearance. For I’ve never seen such a striking contrast as his dark, unruly curls and those intense, pale blue eyes. The dark Viking, we used to call him. with the big, expressive mouth and the eyes from which a twinkle is never absent. I soon found out why they called him Hurry-Kain and Airmad Edgar, and realised lie had only one ambition in life —to become a pilot in the R.A.F. Guess it was in the blood. His uncle, the late Lieutenant Jumbo Laidler, was one of ihe crack test pilots in the last war. Lucky for Cobber both his father and mother realised when he was quite a kid he would have to bo a flier or bust. So they gave him every help. FAME AT 18 MONTHS.

But let me tell something about ihe New Zealand background of Cobber. From that you can sum him> up yourselves. Born at Hastings, New Zealand, he won fame at the age of eighteen months by topping a bonnie babies contest. Ever since he's been trying to live that down, insisting no beak-nosed youth with a mop of rebellious hair could over have won the beauty stakes. His two brothers, Maurice and Ken. and his sisters, Judith and Peggy, refuse to let the past be forgotten. His father, a tall, bespec-, tacled man in the soft goods business, and his mother —now a silver-haired lady who is proud because she gets a letter from Cobber by every mailsent him to a boarding-school, and then to Christ's College, which is the Harrow and Eton of New Zealand. At school he scooped the pool in rilleshooting. boxing, rowing, and was a more than useful rugby forward. He fell a victim to the “air bug” at the age of ten, and the fever never left him. At sixteen he joined the local aero club. His parents consented to let him come to Britain and chance his hick at getting a short-term commission in the R.A.F. On a farewell trip to Sydney, he flew round Sydney low over the water, "just to get a good look at the sharks.” In London his luck was out. “Outgrown your strength," said the Selection Board. "I’ll be back in three months,” he replied. He stayed with friends in Ihe Home Counties, put in some flying practice, never went "without his P.T.. and at the end of three months there was no more "outgrown your strength” verdict. He gained his commission. Given the choice of a fighter or bomber squadron. he went all out for the fighters.

All quiet on the home front, he intended last summer to make a long lour of Germany, on the invitation of business friends of his father's, who promised him “one whale of a lime.” Instead, his squadron found itself four minutes Hying distance from the Siegfried Line. but. as he remarked, “the Germans provided us with a whale of a time as per schedule.” Each dawn found him on the flying-field tuning up the engine of the Hurricane, itching to go up on patrol and get after the Germans. Very diffidently, he told me he had received a remarkable Maori charm from his sister Peggy, who had been given it by a chief for him uo wear —a talisman lo protect him against harm. Now, superstitions are laughed at in the R.A.F.. and Cobber is not precisely one of the superstitious kind. But no New Zealander can be unmoved when he receives one of these Tiki mascots —the Maori greenstone carved as the head of a native war god with tongue sticking out to frighten the enemy as in the war dance. Chiefs travel great distances to the .Southern Islands and at great peril cut the stone

from the living rock. Every New Zealander recalls that Sir Lionel Halsey, commander of H.M.S. New Zealand in the last war, was presented with a similar charm. As long as he kept it in the turret; of his ship, he was told, no harm would befall it. So it happened. H.M.S. New .Zealand went through Ihe battles of Heligoland, Dogger Bank, Jutland, and minor engagements without harm. Yet ships right beside them went down. Cobber decided to play safe and attach the mascot to his identity disc. Fie soon placed faith in it. after an incident in which he had a "spot of bad luck.” Flying five miles up, he spotted a heavily-armed Fleinkel bomber, stalked it successfully, and then, dived into the attack. He chanced everything on one knock-out blow at close quarters. Bullets and shells all round him, but he got in, pressed his firing button for the “kill" —and nothing happened. The oil in the mechanism had frozen. The guns were not working! Now he was in a tight spot. For the bomber saw his predicament, brought its guns to bear, and the tables were turned. Only by the most oaring aerobatics was lie able to get away. At times he thought his number up. When ho landed, there was nothing but rueful mortification on his face as he explained how he had "let the chance of a lifetime slip.”

BATTLE FIVE MILES UP. On his 21si birthday lie broke his duck. The victim was a Dornier, the latest and. fastest reconnaissance machine of that time. The battle was fought at a height of just over five miles—then a record in aerial warfare. In the face of fierce fire. Cobber climbed almost, into the tail of the Dornier —and this time the oil had not frozen. The port engine of the Dornier went out of action, the Germans banked, climbed, counter-attacked, but Cobber held his fire until he was only 50 yards away. Down the Dornier went crashing to earth in the death dive. After he had seen the wreckage Cobber was more silent than ever. When he landed his own wings had been stripped of metal fabric, in his dive after the enemy to make sure it was not “pulling a fast one.” “When I saw ihe clock of the Hurricane registering 400 miles an hour, I thought it time to pull out of that dive,” he told me. That night fie walked back to his mess and announced—“ Boys, the drinks are on me. I’ve made a start.” He celebrated the occasion with a lager beer. Just one, to mark an occasion. When the press boys came around they couldn’t get Cobber to “shoot a line.” As they remarked —“He came into the mess as if he didn’t really exist, smiled at us good-humouredly, and then next minute he was gone. Nobody seemed to see him go.” He's worked this vanishing trick a good many times. Just a few days ago he slipped out of the Paris radio station unseen, to the broadcast regrets of the announcer.

THRILLING DOG FIGHT. Cobber won his D.F.C. some five weeks ago in a really thrilling dogfight. He and two other Hurricanes were hot on the trail of seven Heinkels, when one of the Hurricanes had to drop out owing to engine' trouble. Next moment eight or nine Messerschmitts swooped down on the remaining couple. The sergeant pilot of the second Hurricane was shot out of the battle, and Cobber was left to carry on single-handed. Cannon shells ripped through Cobber's Hurricane. "They winged me. shot some of the tail feathers, and then got me in ihe beak." But first one and then another of the Messerschmitts went crashing down. His engine was on fire, had come to a stop, and he was thirty miles behind the Siegfried Line! Losing height quickly, he tried to jump out, but his parachute harness had come adrift. Willy-nilly he had to get back into his seat, and by a miracle —and with the aid of Tiki —he brought the bus back to the French lines. "Then I did something crazy,” he told me. "I passed right out.” Ho woke up in a French hospital, with a French pilot in the adjoining bed. They threw a party, and it was coming to an end when Cobber pal had a machine outside. Out of bed he hopped and flew back to his own crowd. His first attempt to “join the Caterpillar Club” had been frustrated. So he made up for it in his latest scrap. Again three Hurricanes were attacked by nine Messerschmitts. Again he isolated a couple of them and “let them have the blast.” All this at 25.000 feet. The rest beat it for Germany. Cobber was floating around looking for more scraps to feast on, when a lurking Messerschmitt, higher still, swooped down on his blind side. A cannon shell took away his cockpit hood: "Hames and oil spouted from the engine. He was dazed by the explosion. slightly wounded in leg and arm. His machine got into a death spin. He put his arm out, and it seemed to take him, half an hour to get it back again. Somehow he got the machine out of the dive, flattened out. . and "bailed out.” The cool air was such a relief that he forgot to pull the rip cord of his parachute. In his own words, he woke up “in a heaven of white clouds." His gloves were smothered with oil. He had to get thorn oil', and then he found the harness had slipped off one shoulder. A pull at the cord, and looking down, he saw himself falling into the German lines. Then came a clever trick. ’He grabbed handfuls of the rigging, so that it tilted and drifted him westwards. He landed in a ploughed field. Saw a village close by, but something prevented him making for it. Instead he headed westwards, ran into a French patrol, who held him up at the bayonet point and had to be convinced he was a Britisher. Had he made for the nearby village he would have found himself a prisoner. Now his mail has grown tremendously. . He laughs and puts the letters on one side. His parents receive hundreds of requests for his autograph. He is not likely to oblige. Any attempts to lionise him now that he has come to London on leave will fail. The Scourge of Goering will be content to pass the time on the river with his bunch of devoted friends. Good luck. Cobber!