EYES OF THE FORCES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 September 1943, Page 6

EYES OF THE FORCES

DOMINION HUDSON UNITS PACIFIC WAR.’ GUADALCANAL OPERATIONS. (Official Correspondent.) GUADALCANAL. Day after day, in fair weather or foul, Hudson aircraft of the New Zealand bomber-reconnaissance squadron now at Guadalcanal, take off and between them cover thousands of square miles of ocean on routine patrols. Manned by some of the most experienced aircrews in the Royal New Zealand Air Force, the Hudsons are performing a. task that is unspectacular, boring anol tedious in the extreme. At the same time, it is of vital importance in keeping the sea and air-lanes open to Allied traffic and free from enemy raiders. It is still dark when the Hudson faces down the runway. The aircraft takes off eastward, where first light is beginning to show, making the steel, matting on the runway a faintly shining path in the surrounding gloom. She lifts easily, turns over sleeping camps, completes her circuit and is. away. Usually the trip is uneventful. So many hours out, a fresh course given by the navigator, and so many hours home. And only the sea and the sky, clouds chasing each other across they empty air, and the unvarying note of the twin motors. Ever so slowly, the minute hand on the clock mounted in the pilot’s instrument panel creeps round, and, just as slowly, the fuel gauges drop as petrol is burned. There.is no sense of movement. The aii'craft seems suspended between /blue sky and blue sea. ‘ ? Only occasionally is the monotony I broken. Sometimes a Japanese aircraft is sighted, on a similar mission, looking for shipping. Usually it makes off, though once a float-plane tried conclusions with a Hudson, and was neatly shot down by the front, guns. Even more rarely, a submarine is seen, I On those occasions the patrolling Hudson has swept down upon an enemy ‘pig-boat,’ bomb-doors have swung open, and depth-charges hurtled down to take revenge for Allied ships sunk. Wreckage may be seen floating gix the water, pitiful scraps of seme unknown ship, and once—it happened or-.ly recently—the watchful eyes of the turret gunner saw a tiny life-rr.it, and an American pilot was saved to fly again. On the north-western tip of the island. the crew look down upon the wreckage of Japanese snips. Grim relics of the great air and sea battle of last December, they dot the reef. Held fast by coral teeth, they lie where they were driven ashore, being slowly battered to pieces by the waves. Hundreds of Japanese landing barges <are scattered along the shore, and even as the Hudson comes in to land, its crew can see the devastated areas swept by gunfire earlier this year, and only now being covered again by fresh green growth.