NEW ZEALAND AIRMEN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 May 1943, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND AIRMEN

SERVICE IN MANY WAR AREAS FROM ARCTIC TO MIDDLE EAST. (Special P.A. Correspondent.) LONDON, May 4. To have breakfast in Reykjavik Iceland, and dinner in London has been among the experiences of Flying Officer Norman W. Weblin, Wellington. He is an intelligence officer in the Coastal Command, and was posted to Iceland for eight months. On the occasion mentioned, he flew in a Catalina flyingboat which had been modified for landing on an airfield. He is now stationed in England as intelligence officer at a Beaufighter squadron engaged in attacks on shipping in the North Sea. Sergeant John James Simpson, Christchurch, who is also with a Beaufighter squadron, took part in the rescue of fishermen when their trawler developed trouble in the North Sea. Sergeant Simpson said: “We discovered the trawler shortly after dawn and counted four fishermen waving to us. We dropped rations and sleeping bags and stayed over them till a naval vessel arrived.”

Flying Officer N. Breed, Wanganui, who is a navigator, is now instructing in England after carrying out 45 raids in the Middle East, 24 of which were on the Tobruk “mail run” when it was held by Field-Marshal Rommel. Flying Officer Breed was among the New Zealand pilots who bombed the Germans while they were advancing to El Alamein and pounded them while they were retreating. He saw the now historic opening of the El Alamein barrage from the air,“lt resembled a line of flame,” he said. He was in the bombing raid which supported the New Zealanders when they broke through a few days later. On his last trip, which was the bombing of trucks concentrated on a road between Gyrene and Derna, one of tthe Wellington’s engines blew up, necessitating a forced landing in the desert.

Sergeant Alan Robinson, Mercury Bay, the pilot, made a perfect landing, and next morning an air search and rescue raft arrived and flew them to the base.