1957-06-15 — Page 13

TRADE

WITH CHINA

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, JUNE 15, 1957.

"SORRY TO CROSS YOU BUT WE NEED THE MONEY."

London Express Service

THE CAT'S EYE BREED

Friell

Copyrfan_in

all countries

Books of the war

Men who could see in the dark

THE German High Command was baffled and

worried. It seemed that Britain had bred a type of fighter pilot-men with the eyes of cals could see in the dark.

London.

New

who

a Heinkel," writes Rawnsley. "The guns fired, the Heinkel had not on i stalker.

My lodger, the

friendly owl

IN the great valley oaks, in the windswept trees of the mountain, on lonely rocky outerops, they have their homes. They fly by night and I hear them hooting, but neither I nor anyone else has ever heard the heat

of

their soft, blunt by Thurlow Craig

wings, for the flight of

the owl is utterly silent. bottom and again sharp

right into the kitchen,

One day very early a shot echoed

across

the

When I arrived seconds

valley and I wondered, for later he was on his shelf pigeons were still roosting With a staccato hoot hu preening the bad wing. and there are very few

pheasants for the ponchers gave me to understand that hereabouts, But that morn- he had established his ing my elder son went fish. ability, if not to fly again, ing, returning almost im- at least to glide. mediately with 11 great Some time later my wife tawny owl in his arms, was walking down the dark Some misguided

person, passage when an ceric yell imagining that owls are like something from outer harmful, had shot it.

spaco nearly scared her into The strange bird, watch fits. There on a cont-hanger Bat the owl industriously ing us with blazing, un-

unravelling a woollen scarf. blinking eyes, neither

Trailing yards of yellow struggled nor uttered while the wing was being splint flow back to his shelf. Now wool from one talon, he ed. Then we stood him on he could fly, and finally we the kitchen shelf where he would be safe from the came to regard him as

--cats, ferrets, and all- cats, and he relaxed, eyes fully-fledged member of the closed, the broken wing family. drooping.

4

A

One day he opened his In came Panda, our great wings and flow out of senior cat, sensing some- the house, laboriously and "A wicked orange glow thing new. The owl lopsidedly making it to peared inside the fuselage of the

horse-chestnut 20 his buge opened Heinkel, and 11g wheels fell

away. Heavily yellow eyes and yards down in the most forlorn way,

the lowest emitted a shattering double alighting in

tentative castanets in fork, he gave a

suddenly

the Squadron its first to gle

on Air Interception, as tecture

dr was then called. "Alr interception," he Laku. works on the same principle as You en ordinary Solund echo. shout Boo' across a valley, and Night after night, Hitler's bombers were being sent after a short interval the echo In waves over London. It was against the laws of

As we flew alongside walching, shinitis 'oo' back at you, nature that the British flyers could pick them out so

tid koowing the glow burst through the skin click time the interval

and the tunes took over. The furious gipsy hands, mak- hoot. We applauded, but accurately and shoot them down from the night skies, the speed of round you can work

and trembled Dut the distance

the whole alcraft across

Panda there was no reply from his Yet it was happening.

valley."

One naine in particular stood out from among the airmen who were defending London 20 successfully mame of Joan Cunningham. No German bom- ber was safe once it gol in his runge, even though the skick The were black and moonless. British

newspapers explained his air vielories simply. The wns a pliol with remarkable night vision, they said,

The Germans beloved it--for time. But then they found that they were eaming up against too many men with this same "re- markable night vision."

Today, Group Captain Com ningham, now a famous chief fest pilot of a leading alteroft Rem,

in trying in vins to live down

the nickname of "cal's cw" Cuo- ningham, which has stuck to him ever since World War II. For there is, and never

By Dominic

Jones

Interception of the Cernad aeroplanes proved virtually in- possible, particularly when the Genian denkers took to cong in cloudy weather. The British fighter patrols lew round in- potently in the immensity of the night while waves of the invisible Germany bombers it, and stoked up, the fires below.

Even when the searchlights caught a bomber in their beams. the fighters could not get there

ire time, or were themselves caught and blinded by the beam.

You

It sounded all so simple, but Rawnsley's first trial inter- coption he had the impression that the target aircrafi WAN taking violent evasive action, for the trace was sliding backwards and forwardi aemss the radar

screen.

"Was the target feling much evasion?" he asked. "Non at all. It straight and level." he Was tola.

enormous

like

broke into a violet pilching, ing us all jump.

plunge to earth. The show was

over.

He sat there until just

បួន

and with a plume of fames left hurriedly, whereupon own kind. stretching out behind the Noirnud, our black tom Hekkel went anto a headlong kitten, presumed to in before dusk, when we tried vestigate. Another double to entice him down, dang- click sent him flying. Song a fat mouse to tempt The King had સામ every

He looked at settled the having

cat him. of the combat and minute watched the burning atrerait question, the owl closed his gravely and bade us faro-

well. siido from the sky.

eyes again..

"Hoo-hoo!" he said, and again "Hoo," very soft and low. He launched himself clumsily, sideslipped, swoop-

was dying Secret

Luler, he discovered that this weaving was due to the rear operator's over correction in his instructions to his pilot.

Rawnsley tells of the lime when he put a special. "Royal performance" for King George VI. The King who was Inspect- og his squadron paused in fren of Rawnsley and asked him his

Gradually,

the type of radar

provement was the development

Cat's Meat

Next came the food prob- ed sharply to the valley, set supplied to the night fighter, lem, fur owls will not ent and flew slowly away to the pilots improved. One great im- domestic food, myxomatosia black trees across the river of a set capable of operating had finished the rabbits where he had been found. very much nearer the ground and there were no rats or We watched until he was than the earlier types. This mice in the house. But lost in the gathering cabled the night fighters to go Panda, who after the German mine-layers

and streak rolders.

Then, suddenly, the mechanics started la introduce curious jumble of gurigets into the air- thing abnormal about his night craft allocated to night patrol.

radar that some The veret of the night the vital part of which was a

vinden.

was, any

vices Iny as a small black box

black metal box sprouting knobs

and cables. into

which introduced radar Britain's Bghter aireratt and helped to save her elties from destruction.

New War

The story of how it enabled pilots to see in the dark is told in a new book, "Night Fight"?" (pubished by Collins-18 shi- lings) by C. F. Rawnsley and Robert Wright. Rawnsley was navigator to CuneIngham ko the team which showed the way in the development of this new form of uerint combat.

Whon Hitler turned, in the winter of 1940-41, from day, to night bombing of England's cities, it seemed at first that the air war had taken a turn in n direc- tion in which the Royal Air Force could not follow.

DIS

score.

"Nine, sir" Rawnsley replied, night for me? ts King asked.

9 you get another one to

have darkness. must

Minutes later we heard worked out the position for himself, went quietly for a him hoot. Perhaps it was By the summer of 1943, such had been the development of walk, presently returning to let us know he had!

of the earlier with a fat field mouse arrived, perhaps it was a typen were released for use which he laid at my wife's cry of triumph. equipped with the latest models him, she gave it to the owl answers. abroad. But all night fighters feet. Having rewarded time thero were many

The owl home again.

were still forbidden to go over enemy territory.

There were therefore many

grey

The "backroom boys,"

Later that night, George VI

and that was that. Britain's wartime scientists were watched on the radar sereon of nicknamed had succeeded in pro- Ground Control as Cunningham ducing a form of airbome radar. d Rawnsley were directed to frustrations, such as chasing a the next three months

Every day thereafter for From now on, a controller on the an enemy rálder out at sea, enemy bomber to the coast of

mado ground would

there were contact and France and then having to give | unless direct a fighter Rawnsley kto the vicinity of an enemy brought Cunningham close up the hunt in care the fighter squirrels or fresh liver- aircraft until it showed up co

nough for him to see it. the fighter's own mar screen.

was brought down and thus re- the cats brought in one or vealed the precious secret to the The zadar operator in the air

Germans. enfi then took over, and, issuint stream of verbal instructions, would try to bring his plot with- in visual ratige of his victim.

But Cunningham did not want to attack against the shining hackcloth of the sea, so he walled.

"Surely it must be one of the rare occasions-If not the only All that remained was to shout ou which a gumber of the bin down. At least, that was cast of a Royal Command per- the throty

of it, but i proved formance had kept the audience vastly more difficult and more walling," wriles Rawnsley, cumplicated than that.

Raurisley describes the first difficulties they had with the new machten. A slim young civlilan todas specialist arrived one day

MANDRAKE THE MAGICIAN

MANDRAKE'C

"GOOD-(SPUTTER

GOT A GIRL SPUTTERITATS NAMED NARDA. HOW WE'LL GET

QUITE A DISH,,

HIM. BRING

VER HERU,

TUB--WE GOTTA FINISI OUR PLANS FOR THE BANK JOB! WHY WASTE OUR TIME WITH THIS.

MAGICIANT

more mice which they left under the owl's shelf; micc Cunningham and Bawnsley which normally they would stayed together throughout the war, Between them, they won have eaten themselves. nine British decorations.

Slowly the wing mended, Robert Wright servod as per and one day the owl quietly sonal

upstairs, resting Commanders-in-Chier of Fighter hopped Command He did manage to awhile on the top banister. go on us operational flying as n Suddenly he launched him- rudal navigātur for part of self and glided swiftly "We were right below our tar- In 1944 and was badly buned down on widespread wings, et, a great fat prima duans of (China Mail Special).

turning sharp left at the

Later, they caught up with the raider, which was a Hunkel, just over the spot where the King

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CONTINUED

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