Second Section
Hongkong Telegraph.
Royal Air
By RONALD WALKER
Navy has its own aircraft,
SATURDAY, JUNE 14, 1941.
Force Sailors
Few people realise that while the they Royal Air Force has its own fleet. Its ships are the songoing- launches and pinnaces and the variety of small boats which serve flying boats and seaplanes. They makeup the Marine Craft Section of the R.A.F. The crews are largely sailors in the uni- form of the air.
The Section is part of Coastal Command, which trains its own crews. They have their own floating dock for ship repair, and at the Command bases are miniature shipyards.
Pride of the fleet are the high-speed launches whose prin- cipal work is rescuing airmen sailors from the sea. Then come pinnaces, flying boat tenders, refuellers, bomb scows, trawler and drifter auxiliaries and pilot cutters, armoured target bonts, moor- ing boats and dinghies.
The launches are 63 feet long with a beam of 14 feet. Powered by the three 500 h.p. acro engines they have a top speed of 40 m.p.h. and cruise at 32 m.p.h. They carry a crew of ten. The captain, known as the Master, has the rank of Flying Officer, His crew consists of two first-class coxswains, three deck hands, two engineers and two wireless operators.
Originally the rescue launches were unarmed as it was be- lieved that the enemy would respect mercy work. It was a vain belief. German bombers and fighters attacked the launches even when they were fishing German airmen out of the sea. Now they carry machine guns to defend themselves.
The launches maintain regular, constal patrol. When a radio message comes in from an aircraft, which may be out over the
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North Sea, that a German aeroplane has been shot down and tho crew have taken to their rubber dinghy, the nearest launch springs to action. The message gives the position of the downed machine. Rough seas do not stop these amazingly sturdy boats. The Master estimates where the dinghy will be, sen movements - and wind taken into consideration, when the rescue launch ar- rives. When they get to the estimated aren, they run backwards and forwards across. it-pattorn, searching. Owing to the launches being low in the water, the crew cannot see for when waves are piling up above them. Sometimes launch and dinghy have been within a few yards of each other and have remained unseen.
Reconnaissance aircraft on patrol lend a hand by guiding the launches.
Attacked by German aeroplanes, the launches, sometimes get disabled and the crews killed or wounded. There are many great untold stories of the courage of the crows. Completely disabled by bombs and machine-gun fire, the boats have drifted for hours in heavy seas which pounded them relentlessly. En- gineers have struggled to repair shattered engines. Masters have somehow brought their little ships limping home, or been lucky enough to get a tow from a passing ship,
There is one story of a launch being out all night in rough scas before being able to find and rescuo some German airmen In a rubber boat. Many people have criticised this intensivo.. effort to aid the enemy; but the policy of the R.A.F. is not altogother humanitarian, Thoy will tell you that a rescued German airman has good intelligence value and that dead Ger- mans cannot speak at all.
Into the rescue drag not come sailors, whose ships have been, sunk
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• 110
Magazine Features
A launch of the R.A.F. doing valuable work in the high-speed launch, section. There launchas ard fitted with radio, medical and life-saving apparatus, and have been the moans of saving
a large number of lives when aircraft have been shot or forced down in the 103.
The pinnaces are smaller craft. They have a speed of 14 knots and carry a crew of five.' They service the flying boats, lay flares for landing, carry stores, recover practice torpedoes, and assist in the sea rescue work. One pinnace went out to find some R.A.F. men down in a dinghy off the North of Scotland. A trawler and a lifeboat had failed to find them. The pin- nace battled its way through terrific seas and located the airmen who had taken to their rubber boat in a 60 m.p.h. gale. So bad was the weather that the pinnace could not get back for four days. They rode out the storm at sea anchor. The homo station had almost given them up for lost when they arrived back in port. The master stepped ashore and saluted the Station Com- mander, and said, "Sorry I am lato, sir.”
The tenders act as crash boats, standing by when the flying- bouts take-off or alight; the refuellers. All the tanks with fuel and oil; the 'scows bring out loads of bombs; the trawler and drifter auxiliaries and pilot cutters act as targets for torpedo bombing practice and recover them after dropping; the dinghies- race back and forth between shore and the moored flying-boats; and the mooring boats keep up a constant round of the coastal bases and maintain the flying boat mooring sites.
Most exciting of the R.A.F. marine craft are the armoured target boats-small 20-knot motor bonta^with a crow of three who huddle in a small cabin protected by three and a half tons of steel. They wear crash helmets and have their ears plugged. against blast. Their job is to be bombed by traineo bombers. The bombs are only small ones of about 11 pourids, but a direct hit adds variety to the lives of the crew. The boats are so con- structed as to be almost unsinkable; but accurate bombing sends the little boats leaping about in the water, battered by bombs bursting around and on them. From the flurry of broken water a cheerful voice comes up over the radio telephone to the bomber overhead, "O.K., carry on." It is not surprising that the crews get danger pay.
At the left is a view of the interior of the cabin of a high-speed launch. The log belongs to
the officer in command, who is on look-out from the top cockpit. Below is soon a high-speed
armoured target boat, used by the Royal Air Force. for bombing practice.