EXHIBIT IN ADEN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 June 1940, Page 5

EXHIBIT IN ADEN

CAPTURED ITALIAN BOMBER FORCED DOWN BY BRITISH PILOT. ANOTHER MACHINE CAPTURED BY FRENCH. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, June 27. According to reports from Aden considerable interest has been created locally by the presence of a captured Italian bomber, which was recently flown 150 miles back from a place in the desert where it had been forced down by a British pilot, who first captured the Italian crew of five. There were large crowds all day round the tri-motor Italian plane. Incidentally the action of the British pilot in taking off from the dumpy Wadi in an aircraft of which he had no experience drew a tribute of professional admiration from the Italian pilot. He called his captor “Homo fantistico.” It is also reported from Aden that news has been received there that another Italian bomber, after the same unsuccessful raid toward Aden on June 12, made a forced landing in French Somaliland, and was seen by a pair of Somali militiamen. In spite of fire from the bomber’s machine-guns, the Somalis gradually crept up. and forced the three surviving members of the crew to surrender. One Somali marched them to the nearest post while the other guarded the aircraft.