FRENCH AIRMEN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 October 1943, Page 4

FRENCH AIRMEN

SERVICE ON 1 - THE RUSSIAN FRONT

The Normandy air squadron, one of the formations of the Fighting French air forces, which all bear the name of a province in the hands of the Germans, is fighting on the Russian front. It was formed last year with the definite purpose of serving against the Germans side by side with Soviet airmen. It was composed of men who had already fought in the Battle of Britain, in Syria, and in Libya. Every member of the squadron had volunteered for service in Russia.

On a December day at the end of last year, a Soviet plane conveyed a group of French flying officers from the heat of Teheran to a snow-bound Russian town, where shorts were exchanged for Russian moccasins and fur coats, and each man was given a Yak plane. The French pilots got used to the Russian machine more quickly than they had to the British fighter aeroplane. They were then asked to choose for themselves a sector of the front.

Fighting French pilots soon began piling up a score. One of them had shot down six German planes over France, and four in Libya, before bagging two in Russia. The commander of the Fighting French airmen on the Russian front had an amusing experience before bidding his British comrades goodbye in North Africa, he told a “Pravda” correspondent. He spotted an Italian plane in the distance, but on closing in to the attack he discovered it bore the Red Cross, so did not fire. The Italian pilot, however, was so scared that he landed on the nearest beach. The Italian passengers began to scatter and were taken prisoner. Amongst them were six Italian generals, trying to escape from Tobruk under cover of the Red Cross.

Five Fighting French airmen have been decorated by the Russians.