NEW ZEALAND AIRMEN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 August 1943, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND AIRMEN

SERVING IN SICILY.

SOME NOTABLE RECORDS.

(Official War Correspondent, N.Z.E.F.)

CAIRO, August 15

“Cobber” Kain’s old Hurricane squadron, which is now fighting with the desert air force in Sicily, has as its commanding officer Squadron Leader E. L. “Nipper” Joyce, D.F.M., Hamilton, one of New Zealand’s most successful night fighter pilots. A year ago Joyce, then Warrant Officer, flying a four-cannon Hurricane in the same squadron, shot down three Junkers 88 bombers in five nights.

His amazingly keen eyesight then made him by far the most successful Hurricane pilot operating during moon periods behind El Alamein line. Shortly after his. promotion to pilot officer, Joyce completed his tour of operations and became an instructor. While ne was on operational training courses in Libya and Egypt, his squadron was commanded in Tunisia by an English squadron leader who had fought with Kain in France, and who brought its total number of enemy aircraft destroyed in this war to more than 300. Last month Joyce, who had become an acting flight lieutenant commanding a flight on operational training, was chosen to command his old squadron m Sicily. Ever since Kain became its top-scor-ing pilot in 1940, New Zealand has been well represented in this squadron. At one stage during the El Alamein battle it contained Six New Zealand pilots. Another New Zealander who commanded the squadron was Squadron Leader Derek Ward, D.F.C. and Bar, North Auckland, one of the first desert pilots to attempt night fighter operations.