WATCH & WARD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 January 1943, Page 5

WATCH & WARD

OVER SOLOMONS AREA KEPT BY NEW ZEALAND AIRMEN. INCIDENTAL DESTRUCTION OF ENEMY PLANES. (Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.) GUADALCANAL, December 20. On the hard-won and grimly held island of Guadalcanal, still marked by the scars' of the fierce battles fought to recapture- it, and the foremost bastion of the United Nations in the South Pacific, air crews and ground staff of the Royal New Zealand Air Force are playing an active part alongside their United States allies.

As the first Dominion unit to go into direct action against the Japanese since the fall of the East Indios, the New Zealanders have been entrusted with special tasks, such as patrols and reconnaissance, which in areas outside the actual battle zone, tend towards monotonous, uneventful routine. Here, however, those same tasks have been spiced with exciting incident. Acting as the eyes of Guadalcanal, New Zealand aircraft have on several occasions obsrved and reported Japanese naval movements and guided American air striking forces to the attack. In the course of their routine patrols the New Zealanders themselves have opened a scoreboard of Japanese losses, which includes two float-planes destroyed. On occasions they have met anti-aircraft fire and fighter opposition; One crew, by sound teamwork and adroit airmanship, fought off three Zeros in a 17-minute running battle.

They brought to the combat zone the experience of many weeks’ long-range ocean Hying and navigation in operations carried out from a less advanced base. \Vithin fewer than 24 hours of their arrival here, the first machine had flown out on its first task, with immediate success in reporting a Japanese force.

A prize of a bottle of liquor set up by their commanding officer for the first Japanese aircraft destroyed fell within a few days to a Stratford officer, Pilot-Officer J. G. Gordon, and his crew, who flew out of cloud above an enemy seaplane base and machinegunned a float-plane on the water, setting it ablaze. Then, with one motor out of commission through damage by anti-aircraft fire, they made a remarkable 140-mile flight back to base, landing in darkness after a long detour around a “front” of bad weather. A second float-plane has been destroyed since then by an aircraft captained by Flying-Officer lan Burgess. These chalk marks on the scorebroad, it should be pointed out, were only incidental to the New Zealanders’ primary tasks. Behind them still are long and uneventful hours of flying, bringing thousands of miles of ocean under surveillance against hostile movements. Behind them, too, are the long hours spent on the machines by the men of the ground staff, who work under inevitable difficulties to keep them ready for the air. “They are our unsung heroes,” a pilot said.