LIVING DANGEROUSLY

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21214, 10 September 1940, Page 7

LIVING DANGEROUSLY

WORK OF TARGET BOATS RACE WITH DEATH (Times Air Mail Service.) LONDON, July 24 I have just been listening at headquarters of Coastal Command, R.A.F., to the almost incredible story of the most bombed men in Britain, says a special correspondent of the Daily Herald. These men lead lives more amazing than any others in all the activities that combine to give Britain’s Air Force that well-proven superiority, man for man, machine for machine. over the numerically stronger enemy. They are the “ Three Men in a Boat ” —a little yellow armoured target motor-boat —who provide our bombers with the nearest thing to a real, live human target to be found anywhere. Dodging Bombs You meet them all round the coasts of Britain —wherever there is a sea target range for our bombers. Their boats painted yellow, so as to stand out well as targets, as they are smaller than any hostile craft our bombers have to hit, take up their positions on the ranges when the daily practice times come round. The three men are snug inside, under three and a-half tons of armour. Colossal weight for so tiny a craft. But, even so, they wear crash-hel-mets and ear-protectors. The armour covers the wheel house, engine room and hull. The rest of the boat is packed with a secret buoyant material to render it unsinkable. Not one has ever yet been sunk. But several have been overturned by the force of the bombs. The three men, specially trained to escape from their target in such emergencies, get clear the craft rights itself, or is righted. Then back they climb again, and carry on as usual. The percentage of hits is just as uncomfortably high, and has gone up enormously since the outbreak of war. But the practice bombers don’t have it all their own way. The three men in the little yellow boat give them a run for their money. They streak along at twenty knots, turning, zig-zagging, watching the bomber’s course and dodging it; pretending to be a hostile motor tor-pedo-boat, the smallest and nimblest objective our aircraft ever have to hit. Many a bomb-aimer who has sent a U-boat to its doom has a friendly thought in the moment of success for the fearless and hard-bitten three men in a boat who gave him practice. Routine Work Theirs is not a single act of courage. It is just a routine incident in the daily round. One none of them ever makes a song about. So much so that not one person I’ve met has ever heard of these silent heroes who pit their speed and armour against the precision bombaimers of the R.A.F. There are many such crews and such boats. They belong to the Marine Craft Section of the R.A.F. and are operated by Coastal Command.

The crews receive the ordinary pay of their ranks. Their extraordinary job is contributing immensely to the deadly skill of British bombers. And those bombers hre now finding their mark in relentless and incessant raids on enemy objectives from Bergen to Brest and from Gibraltar to the Red Sea.