SHARP ACTION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 January 1943, Page 4

SHARP ACTION

FOUGHT BY NEW ZEALAND. BOMBER. THREE JAPANESE FIGHTERS BEATEN OFF. (Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) AN ADVANCED PACIFIC AIR BASE, December 20. Superb teamwork and air tactics carried a reconnaissance bomber aircraft of the Royal New Zealand Air Force safely through a brisk running battle with three Japanese long-range Zero fighters. Lasting 17 minutes, the engagement was broken off by the Japanese after they had failed to outmanoeuvre the New Zealand machine. Captained by a North Canterbury pilot, Flying Officer G. Gudsell, the aircraft had sighted and reported to base the presence of a Japanese naval task force. It was continuing to observe the ships’ movements when three Zeros dived on it with the sun behind them. They jettisoned their extra fuel tanks as they attacked. As if on the bridge of a warship, Flying Officer Gudsell directed his aircraft’s defence by remote control. He left his co-pilot to fly the plane and took up a standing position from which he could watch the Zeros at their constant' attempts to close in. Through the intercommunication telephone system he kept up a running fire of warnings and orders to the co-pilot and to the members of the crew who manned the machine-guns. “There’s a so-and-so coming in from about 10 o’clock” or “Hard to starboard” or “Hard to port.” They knew what to do, and for more than a quarter of an hour the New Zealand machine weaved and twisted and banked its way out of the enemy’s sights. Japanese gunbursts, flying wide, raised harmless but unpleasant spurts of water on the sea. The New Zealanders fought back with their own guns, squirting lead at the Zeros at every brief opportunity. Only three bullets hit the New Zealand plane. A specially sharp turn possibly saved Fyying Officer Gudsell's life; it threw him off his balance, and before he could scramble back to his feet a Japanese bullet ploughed into the machine where his head had been. It narrowly missed the co-pilot’s head, too, as it whistled out through the windscreen.