BOMBER FLIGHTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 January 1941, Page 4

BOMBER FLIGHTS

| TO AND FROM GERMANY PILOT DESCRIBES TRIP. ICE FROM SCREW PUNCTURES FUSELAGE. ißrilKli Official Wireless.) ’Received This Dav. 10.7 a.m.) RUGBY. January 3. A journey to and from Germany has been graphically described by an R.A.F. pilot for the Air Ministry news service. These long journeys are often monotonous, but. he says: “One night 1 thought there was almost too much excitement. Our bomber was on its way home, after running into intense anti-aircraft fire during the successful bombing of an oil plant. Ice began to form on the air screw and. though we went up and down to gel out of the layer of cold and moisture which is always apt to produce ice, it was not at all easy to find better weather. Ice was driving back off the airscrew and hitting the fuselage. Some ot the largest pieces were making holes in it and letting in the cold, These holes were not very large, but the pieces of ice were driving so hard against us that I wondered for a moment if it were shrapnel. As 1 was second pilot and had not much to do al the moment. I thought I would visit the wireless operator. I found him engrossed in a Wild West thriller, and paying no attention al all to the ice that was cutting up the fuselage, or to the cold air coming in. He seemed quite disappointed to be dragged back from tlie adventures of Cowboys to dull prosaic reality of si trip • ver Germany aL one a in. and the monotony of antiatreraft fire, electric storms, or ice coming off the airscrews."