Mine Laying By Air

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 85, 7 February 1941, Page 3

Mine Laying By Air

"One advantage of mine-laying by air is the speed with which a minefield can be sown," said an R.A.F. pilot broadcasting recently. "Once they wanted us to mine a certain enemy channel 600 miles away from our base without delay. We received the order at six o’clock one evening. By midnight that minefield had been laid. Mine-laying has to be dead accurate. "The aircraft used are Handley-Page Hampden bombers, but instead of the usual bomb load each aircraft carries a single mine. It is a pretty big mine — a long flat cylinder about 10ft. long and weighing close on three-quarters of a ton, and it packs as big a punch in the ‘way of high explosive as a 21-in. naval torpedo, It can do a lot of damage to

even the biggest ship; the wrecks of several 10,000-ton supply ships which can still be seen in the Baltic are evidence of that. The mine is stowed away inside the bomb compartment and enclosed by folding doors in the underside of the fuselage. There is a parachute attached to the mine, and if the bomb doors are open and the mine falls clear, this parachute automatically opens. It checks the rate of fall so that the mechanism of the mine .won’t’ be damaged by too violent a contact with the water. "Compared with a bombing raid, a mine-laying trip, of course, is a bit tame from the crew’s point of view; almost a rest cure, in fact. Still, the job has its compensations. We are given a couple of consolation prizes each trip, in the form of two high-explosive bombs, After we’ve planted our mines, we can use these."