NEWS OF PRISONER

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20990, 18 December 1939, Page 3

NEWS OF PRISONER

PILOT-OFFICER EDWARDS

TREATED AS OFFICER (Special to Times) NEW PLYMOUTH, Sunday News of Pilot-Officer L. H. Edwards, who was taken prisoner in Germany after the first Royal Air Force raid- on enemy naval bases, has been received by his parents, Mr and Mrs C. A. Edwards, Patea, from Miss N. Luxford, a New Zealander who is engaged in journalism and broadcasting in the United States. Miss Luxford received her information from Mr H. R. Baukhage, an American radio broadcaster who was stationed at Berlin as news correspondent of one of the two largest American radio networks.

“Mr Baukhage recently returned from Germany, where he had been broadcasting,” Miss Luxford said in a letter to the airman’s parents. “I met him as he left the aeroplane in which he flew back, and almost his first words to me were about your son. Knowing that I was a New Zealander, he told me about having met your son and having had a long chat with him.

“Apparently the machine the boys were in was over the Dogger Bank in the Kiel Canal raid. A German aeroplane let off its machine-gun, crippling the British aeroplane. First the wing was struck, then the aeroplane burst into flames, and the seven fliers landed in the water. Only three were saved.

“At first Mr Baukhage said your son was a little timid about talking, but later he lost any nervousness and chatted freely. Mr Baukhage assures me your boy is all right and that he is receiving attention for his wounds. He is being treated as a German officer and has an orderly.”