BOMBER IN TROUBLE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 August 1940, Page 7

BOMBER IN TROUBLE

NOSE OF PLANE BLOWN OFF BY SHELL

DURING ATTACK ON ENEMY

SAFE RETURN IN DIFFICULT CONDITIONS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9.15 a.m.) RUGBY, August 30. An American-built Hudson aircraft of 1 lie Coastal Command lias returned to its base with its nose completely shot off and all the windows in the pilot’s cockpit blown mil. During the return journey of over two hours, the pilot and navigator were drenched with rain and half-frozen by the wind which tore around I hem more furiously t han t he fiercest typhoon.

The Hudson was damaged when making a dive-bombing attack on two enemy destroyers near Denmark. The first attack resulted in a near miss. The second salvo fell even closer to the target. As the Hudson was about to pull out of the dive, it gave a tremendous shudder—a high explosive shell had exploded directly in front of the nose, taking it right off.

“The inrush of wind was like a punch from a heavyweight,” said the navigator, “I was blown off my seat against the back of the cabin. We went diving merrily down and I could see the sea coming nearer through the jagged edges of the fuselage in front. The pilot was lying back, with his head outside the cabin, through the hole where the window had been. I

thought he was dead. I tried to wrench the controls back, but could not sjlop the dive, so decided to go aft and ‘try to bale out. Then I found that the door between the cockpit and the cabin was jammed. I went back to the pilot and found that he was helpless, but alive. When the first blast of wind came through, it blew everything out of the cockpit. It caught his helmet, which had filled like a parachute, and pulled his head out of the window. He was wounded in the knee, but was able to pull on the controls, and together we managed to stop the dive. “By that time we were pretty near the water. As soon as we had the aircraft flying again on an even keel, things looked brighter as the engines were running perfectly. Of course she was difficult to trim, but it was remarkable that she wolud fly at all. I forced the cabin door, and we took it. in turns to get a little shelter behind the partition. With a howling wind and the roar of the engines, the noise was terrific. It then started to rain and the drops, streaking horizontally, were hitting us like a barrage of peas. I was colder than I had ever been in my life, but we got back at last and, thanks to an undamaged undercarriage, made an excellent landing.”