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Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 October 1942, Page 3

Several hundred homing pigeons are being trained in Britain as messengers for the United States Army on the various Allied war fronts. The birds are being taught to fly in the dark and to make two-way flights. An R.A.F. record shows that of 320 messages sent from aircraft by its pigeons, 307 were delivered.

The American Army is developing a new raiding unit, the “swimmandos,” who are trained to swim rivers, raid enemy shore installations, knife sentries and establish bridgeheads for fullscale attacks. The swimmandos, wearing shorts and with knives in their belts and rifles on their backs, carry tommy-guns and ammunition on tiny rafts.

“A few days ago Lieutenant Peter Roberts, of the Royal Navy, rang up his wife on the phone and said: ‘A terrible thing has happened. I have to be given the Victoria Cross for doing something any man jack on board my submarine would have been glad to do.’ ‘What was that?’ said his wife. ‘Oh, heaving a couple of unexploded bombs overboard. That’s all.’ And that was how this new hero of the British submarine service described an act of bravery which, with Petty Officer Gould (who has also been awarded the V.C.) he performed when two unexploded bombs lodged on the deck gun-casing of the submarine Thrasher. It was the first bomb Lieutenant Roberts had ever seen. ‘As I lay in the gun-casing,’ he said, ‘my only ambition was to get the bombs overboard and get back to sleep’.”—From “London Letter” broadcast in the 8.8. C. Overseas Service by Macdonald Hastings.

By special arrangement, Reuter’s world service, in addition to other special sources of information, is used in the compilation of the overseas intelligence published in this issue, and all rights therein in Australia and New Zealand are reserved,