THE CHINA MAIL, MAY 12, 1941.
CHINA MAIL
WINDSOR HOUSE
HITLER'S VERSAILLES
Before
the deceased
an-
ceased to struggle, two .well-known ambulance chasers bobbed up in Vienna to perform other autopsy. This time the victim was Yugo- slavia, and the operators rushed to the morgue with indecent haste because the fight over the remains threatened to become em- barrassing. Under cover
of the engrossing mili- tary operations in Greece, four claimants advanced
to
Yates
QUICK-CHANGE ARTIST
?
in force over the pros- trate body of Yugo- slavia, each staking off a coveted slice of territory.! The Italians dashed up; the Adriatic coast from | the Albanian border Fiume to gain possession of Dalmatia. The Bul- garians marched intoi Macedonia, establishing themselves in the South Serbian town of Skoplje. The Hungarians and Ru- manians drew up in bat-| tle array, ready to fighti over the rich lands of the lined up at
A number of young men are, Ge, we are racing down
dusk on an RA.F. Yugoslav Banat, once station for a new kind of duty ruled by Hungary. Mean-! They are the men who can see in the dark, specially selected as time the frontiers of the might ters because of their keen separate state of Croatia yright.
Come with me to I night- have not been finally de-nighter station and let us try to termined and Saturday's per the gloom with the pilot who dies into arefic temperatures reports indicate that large 50 below Zero to hunt Nazi sections of the scattered plots
are still alive!
Night Fighter
Serb army and kicking in the centre of the country.
A Typical Log
|
I gave her the gun all right. Swing her round for AG. to get a broadside to port with all his Four guns.
Knew it was a Hun, because no other R.A.F. aircraft in this sector, gausation in ground and air if the This job depends on good or-
system is to work. It worked this time.
We got a JU 88 all right. Well done A G.
It's worth going down through the murk to find the aerodrome with the first one in the bag on Here is a typical log of a lone the first patrol to-night padot on night patrol
22:33 hours Landed 0,K Boulton Paul Defiants
16 40 hours 44 pm)
Warned
Dressed and strulled over to the Mess for hot meal of ham 21: eggs and lots of lea at 17.00 hours.
18.00 hours On the tarmac Cloud is heavy and low
Not so
an eye on each other to avoid col-
are the machines they generally Use for this job.
divining rods which are now be- ing tried out to probe the skies to find the bomber cannot be fully exploited. unless they lead to illumination.
The drst D.FC. has been award- ed for night interception. Flight- eyes Lieut. John Cunningham--"cat's- Cunningham" he is called because of his uncanny night vision chased a raider for 10 minutes off the South coast and Kot hum
He sighted another above him and with well-aimed tracer bul- leta found his billet.
How did he see his enemy in the dark" it was the tell-tale flammes of the exhaust gases from The motors which betrayed the fe The exhaust flames are not
It was the Defiant which, when | visible by day. first tried out, shut down 60 enemy.
By William Courtenay
Giant Task
Clever devices are resorted to to try to conceal them at night. but they cannot be hidden alto- gether
There is danger for for duty Hitler in all these disputes; and new divisions. A particularly ugly situa-¦ tion is developing in good for pre-dawn landings Rumania, where Antones-! 18.30 hours Taxi out. Keeping cu, prodded by the inex-..
Let us go over the difficulties i tinguishable Iron Guard, 18 43 hours My turn to take-
which face our night fighters and is publicly repudiating, making the taxi a couple of miles without loss to themselves.
off. Wind would be S.W. to-night, aircraft in three days in France see the magnitude of their task.
First, the aerodrome itself is the Vienna Dicktat. This first. Anyway, it warms the en-
Many people have wondered shrouded in darkness
except for must have been consider and my A.G. (air gunner) why the Defiant was so suddenly the flare path hurriedly lighted by
doesn't seem to mind being bump-withdrawn from service after its mechanics. ed in Vienna, for while the ed along.
good work in France and why a The Defant flies into its allotted quarrelsome Balkans have
round it ever since. veil of secrecy has been drawn part of the sky. Straining eyes watch for the white breakers to take anything they get,
The enemy would like to know which betray the presence of and like it, the master of
this, too, Only this much can be water, though even these are dif- fleult to delect from high al- the house must be in- furiated by the incessant
18.57 hours--Take-off at last.
Engine rumming sweetly, low the instrument fingers seem to dance when 50 of them jump about like marionettes just at the take-off in darkness. This ghostly lighting on the dashboard makes me look all
weird and green.
disorder reigning among 19.20 hours-That's better. I the conquered but appar-loyd the fert 20,000 feet. With always feel happier when I've got ently unconquerable lots of room below there's lots of 'peoples.
too
said.
J
He turns to search his area when he judges the raider will have en- tered it,
These aircraft were designed as titude,
When they were night lighters, Tried out in daytime in France cularly as they were "a surprise they did exceptionally well, parti- packet,"
Lessons were learnt which have been incorporated in these air- craft, and now they are back at the task for which they were de- signed.
The Blenheim Aghter-bomber is Its also used for night fighting. long range, gun turret amidships and crew of three make it admir- able for night interception, and its speed of 300 m.p.h. is superior to that of any enemy bomber which There are other types, too, new
Let us take a look at the pilots new "fly-by-nights". Britain's They are hand-picked youngsters,
time to think of what to do in emergency. I love altitude. I won- der how high we can take the The Fuehrer has "crate to-night, sketched a new map of
19.30 hours--A.G. behind seems alert and unusually communica- Southeast Europe.
His tive.
I can hear him talking to 'Versailles will be an-
himself. Must be to relieve the
Perhaps he'll be boredom. nounced instead of nego- busy soon to be bored. tiated.
21.30 It will be the
and hours-32,000 feet, 50 below. Phew! I've never been "Diktat" of one
man so high, but it's warm enough in it may meet. instead of a compromise here. We must have crossed the
coust. I'll turn back now and types. worked out by many- keep up and down this strip. minded commissions Feel like a copper, on his beat at night with "nothing to report, hearing all sides. And it nobody drowned and nothing to will settle nothing, satisfy laugh at at all" as little Albert nobody, and contain no 22.00 hours Time to be going provision for appeal or re- down. The petrol's running low; peal. Of all the strait- But suspect, I can see a faint red glow. below. Wish I could hear jackets ever devised, it engines, of other aircraft above will be the most inflexible, the noise of mine. Then I could
follow a lot easier. the most inhumane, and
as, we see already in r bet. Rumania and Hungary the most futile.
said.
That glow's an engine exhaust,
Yes, there he is. Now for it. Fli. make her touch 415 m.p.h. to get after him. She'll take it,
t
fresh and alert, with the eye of an eagle and the pouncing power of a hawk.
selected for
Only the young and very ft are night-flying tasks aboard the fighters. It is a new
technique.
It is at this stage that the pilot prays for the vision of the cat. He peers into the gloom of darkness for some sign of engine exhaust glow or for the sinister silhouette of the intruder.
Once this appears he is able to manoeuvre into position for his gunner to open Are.
The patrol and vigil are short for the Defiant does not carry a big fuel supply. Groping down in the darkness to find the dim glow of the flare path is yet an ordeal to be faced when the hours of sentry-go are over,
If bad weather closes in on the aerodrome while the pilot is "up- stairs" his task is doubly danger- ous.
But with this system of co- ordination and cooperation and. with Intensive training at the tochnique of night fighting ex- cellent resulta are now being achieved.
From the experience the techni- The main problem of the night | que is being perfected. fighter may be summed up in As new devices come into one sentence. Ha, must sẹo his operation there is the certain pro- enemy or he cannot hope to mise that in time the R.A.F. will clone with him and bring him grasp the menace of the roving down.
night raiders, and by the infliction Scoing in the dark-that is the of heavy casualties make them essence of the problem. And all fear the night as already the scientific devices, and aerial the "Luftwaffe" fears the day.
#
1 van 19 bulander 1891 bd HR Hexafa' iatan SIATK MTRC
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.