Chapter 8 Beaufighters; The Cat. Boats; You've Gotta Be Good;

BEAUFIGHTERS

JAPANESE soldiers living in the neat white stone villages of Bobonaro and Moabisse which doze in the folding hills of Portuguese Timor were the first enemy troops to discover that the R.A.A.F. had brought a new and fearful weapon to harass and destroy them. One afternoon the serenity of their garrison life was suddenly shattered by a barrage that blasted buildings, wrecked vehicles and killed comrades. They didn't see the aircraft which swept in just above the trees.

There was no warning from whirring engines. Suddenly they heard the bark of cannon, the roar of aircraft passing close overhead, saw the shattering impact of exploding shells, comrades dropping as they ran. All this in twenty seconds. Then the planes were gone and a Jap garrison knew that their enemies had a new and terrifying weapon.

That was the Japs' introduction to Beaufighters-sturdy, swift, powerful, pugnacious aircraft which, from then on, were to bring swift unheralded destruction to enemy bases north of Darwin.

The Beaufighters waged a new kind of war against the Japanese. It was aggressive war, war of attack, war of accurate destruction. Hitherto the enemy had been bombed by aircraft which flew at remote heights in the sky. Sometimes they were strafed by low-diving bombers.

That kind of attack had given them time to take cover. It was the sort of war they had experienced throughout their island conquests. Now it was different. Aircraft which skimmed the trees hurtled through the steep valleys of Timor's mountains, the hills screening the noise of their approach. They gave no sign of their coming and their guns' fury destroyed everything in their path.

Their fame reached Australia long before Beaufighters came to the country. Many stories from overseas told of the destruction wrought by their four cannon and six machine guns. To fly them into action from Australia, the R.A.A.F. chose highly trained and experienced pilots and navigators. Every one of the pilots who brought the Beaufighters to the North-western area was an experienced instructor or staff pilot. Each one of them had flown for more than a thousand hours. Later successes were to prove the wisdom of choosing highly trained men to fly the Beaufighters.

One Beaufighter squadron was formed at the beginning of September 1942. The commanding officer was Squadron-Leader (now Wing-Commander) Charles Read, D.F.C., and the two flight-leaders were Squadron Leader D. C. Riding and Squadron-Leader G. W. Savage. Squadron-Leader Bruce Rose. D.F.C., who had flown Beaufighters into action overseas was in charge of training. Six extremely busy weeks went by while the squadron was formed and the pilots and navigators trained in their new "kites".

Ground crews slaved long hours learning all they could about the complexities of the aircraft. Stores were made ready, equipment was obtained. The countless articles required to equip a squadron were gathered together and sent north. Above all, men who were complete strangers to each other had to be brought together; had to learn to know each other so that the squadron could achieve that peak of efficiency which comes only through team work.

The monsoon had begun to spread its clammy fingers over the Dar-win area as the first aircraft arrived. A new strip had been made for the Beaufighters, but there was no camp established, and the men of the squadron set about making one for themselves. They built it in their spare time after training flights. As the monsoon closed down, the air crews began to learn something about the difficulties of flying in tropical weather, and the ground crews discovered the amount of toil required to manhandle nine tons of aircraft from the cloying mud of the dispersal areas to the runway. But although the grey blanket of the monsoon hung low over the area, and all the land oozed water and mud, the Beaufighters were grounded for only one day during the entire "wet".

Came November 17, 1942, the day for their first operation against the enemy. All members of the squadron were at the strip to watch the take-off. Six Beaufighters were to attack the villages of Bobonaro and Moabisse. The aircraft looked good as they rolled up f or the take-off. The aircraft raced down the runway. The noise of the engines, which is never great, died quickly as they became airborne. The sound came back again, echoed in a muffled whirr from the low hills far from the end of the runway.

Read and Riding led the two flights on the first operation. The Japs received a sample of what the Beaufighters had in store for them, but it was a sad start for the squadron, for Riding and his navigator were lost when one wing of their aircraft plunged into a wave as they turned over the sea to go in to their target.

The first operation was followed by many strafing sorties in support of the A.I.F. force which was harassing the Japs in Timor. Buildings were shattered, stores destroyed, convoys burned, and many Japs killed in sudden vicious attacks which were over before the enemy knew that hostile aircraft were near them. It was difficult for the crews to observe the success of these attacks, but the men of the A.I.F. reported that the enemy suffered severe casualties.

The wisdom of selecting highly trained personnel now became very clear. Beaufighter crews soon learned about the tropical weather fronts which hover between Australia and the islands to the north. Great walls of cumulus clouds tower tens of thousands of feet. Their billowing white contours hide fierce and treacherous wind currents, while beneath them heavy rainstorms spill into the sea. It is black as night in the tropical fronts and the Beaufighters must fly through them and endeavour to keep formation. Only skilled pilots with many hours of formation flying are able to keep a tight enough formation to keep the striking force compact in these wide, murky, tropical fronts. Keeping together is the essential element for success in a strafing attack.

The experienced pilots hold formation through all kinds of weather, and by sheer skill manage to come through weather fronts so thick that it is necessary to use navigation lights at midday. Moreover, their thorough training enabled the pilots to make dangerous journeys along the valleys of Timor, following roads which wound through the mountains, keeping just above the trees to extract the most from surprise.

Navigators, too, are proven experts and are perhaps the hardest-worked and most versatile in the Service. Guiding a low-lying, fast-moving aircraft across hundreds of miles of water through some of the worst weather in the world, and directing it to within a few hundred yards of the target is an extremely difficult task. But the Beaufighter navigators do it, and their work does not end there. They are also radio operators, photographers, and gun loaders and gunners all rolled into one. Over the target they must take photographs, watch out for enemy aircraft attacking from behind, reload the guns when necessary, and act as air gunners, for in the Australian theatre, Beaufighters depart from standard and mount 2 rear guns. When all this is done the navigator pulls his tiny desk over his knees and begins plotting the homeward course. It is arduous, difficult, painstaking and exciting work.

After the initial operation, attacks on enemy-occupied villages became commonplace, but interest quickened with the discovery that the Japs were building a new air strip at Fuiloro, on the north coast of Timor. The Beaufighters were given the job of delaying work on the strip. Men, trucks, stores, fuel dumps, and road-making equipment were destroyed in many sorties. Attacks on Fuiloro became so frequent that air crews began to call it the "Milk Run" and every Beaufighter crew made at least five journeys to Fuiloro.

The real excitement began when the Beaufighters were ordered to attack concentrations of enemy aircraft. It was known that the Japs kept many aircraft at Penfoei, the aerodrome near Koepang, which is the main base in Timor. Penfoei, therefore, was target number one, and late in December six aircraft set out on one of the longest operational flights ever made by Beaufighters. Led by Flight Lieutenant J. Bennett, the Beaufighters safely crossed the wide waters of the Timor Sea, skimmed across the tree-tops of Timor, and, swooping over the hills behind Penfoei, flashed line abreast down the aerodrome. In one lightning strike they burned five bombers, damaged thirteen other aircraft, blew up a petrol dump, and shot up transport, personnel and the barracks area.

So complete was the surprise that Jap bombers were caught on the runway with engines running, and crews were casually walking to others. Ack-ack guns did not begin to fire until the Beaufighters were racing way from the target. Penfoei, like all important enemy aerodromes, was stiff with light
ck-ack, but this did not deter the Beaufighters in their audacious attacks. Ack-ack as increased at Penfoei, but the Beaufighters came back, and it was against this target that they scored their greatest success.

Led by Wing-Commander Read, eight Beaufighters destroyed or damaged twenty-three enemy aircraft. A magnificent team of fliers accompanied the leader. In a few seconds they transformed Penfoei into a shambles of burning and wrecked aircraft and motor transport and damaged buildings.

As he was leaving the target the leader asked his navigator, Flying-Officer J. Marr, how many Beaufighters were following him. Marr replied: "There aren't any Beaus, but 2 Zeros are coming like hell."

The chase lasted across Timor and one hundred miles out to sea before the Zeros turned for home. Total score for the day was five bombers and seven fighters destroyed and nine fighters and two bombers damaged. All is was achieved in twenty seconds of furious fighting.

Meanwhile, other targets were being found for the Beaufighters. Jap floatplanes had been worrying Allied shipping in the Arafura Sea, and it had been discovered that they were based at Dobo in the Ara Islands. The Beaufighter "boys" believed they could do something about the floatplanes, so very early one morning Read set out alone to make an experimental attack. He reached Dobo at dawn. A single floatplane was resting on the water.

One burst of thirty rounds and the floatplane was burning, and Read was racing for home.

After that Jap floatplanes suffered heavily. No matter where the enemy tried to hide them the Beaufighters found them and left a trail of fire and destruction. Savage brilliantly led a particularly successful attack when ten floatplanes were destroyed in ten minutes of hectic strafing.

Besides going to enemy hide-outs, the Beaufighters take their turn at watching over convoys for which Jap floatplanes come searching. They have shot down one floatplane over a convoy and many times the enemy has been driven away before launching an attack.

Small enemy craft move in constant fear of the lightning attack and the terrifying armament of the Beaufighters. Fire from one Beaufighter will cut a small craft in halves and sink an 8oo-ton vessel. Scores of small craft have been sunk or burned.

Many superb fliers have flown Beaufighters into action from the North-western area. They have been in many sticky spots where Japs have mounted ack-ack especially against Beaufighters. Increasing fighter opposition has added to the difficulties of their tasks. Even though the initial advantage of surprise has passed, and the enemy is using every possible means to stop them, the Beaufighters continue to burn and destroy. Every Beaufighter crew has taken part in brilliantly executed and successful attacks.

Read is an inspiring leader and likes to regard his award of the D.F.C. as a compliment to the great work of his squadron rather than as an individual honour. Savage has taken part in more operational sorties than any other pilot flying Beaufighters from the Northwestern area, and Flying-Officer J. Kearney holds the record for the number of enemy planes destroyed. His score is nine destroyed and six damaged. Flight-Sergeant E. J. Barnett is known to his friends as "Basher", a grand man in a fight. He has the reputation of being the only pilot who has made two passes at Penfoei on the same raid. He blew up an ammunition dump and the explosion shot his aircraft so high into the air that he decided it was a pity to waste such height, so dived and made another attack.

Some of the crews have almost unbelievable experiences to relate. After one strafing operation over Timor, only two of four aircraft returned to base. Little hope was held for the safe return of the others. But the crews did get back. Flying-Officer G. Gabb and his navigator, Sergeant D. A. Webb, were forced down in the sea off Timor. They swam ashore,

were picked up by A.I.F. troops, and finally came back to Australia. The other crew, Flying-Officer L. A. Wilkins and Sergeant W. H. Byrnes, tried to fly their damaged aircraft back to Australia with its elevator shot away. While Byrnes ran back and forth along the fuse a e, trying to keep the aircraft stable, Wilkins managed to fly on. They reached Bathurst Island before the Beaufighter became so unmanageable that they had to bale out. Wilkins landed on the shore-Byrnes fell into the sea. Both were rescued and came back to fly on more strikes against the Japanese.

In their nine months of war against Jap bases, the Beaufighters have proved to be magnificent aircraft. The damage they have done to Japanese personnel, stores, buildings, and equipment cannot be accurately assessed; but their score of enemy aircraft destroyed or damaged is sufficient testimony to their greatness.

Fifty-eight enemy aircraft destroyed-sixty-one damaged-Beaufighter losses minor. That is the Beaufighters' score after nine months of smashing attacks.

THE CAT. BOATS

IT is an old trick of itinerant players, when they want to make an impressive mob scene, to have a few supers walk across the stage in an endless chain. This simple, innocent ruse is calculated to delude the audience into thinking that the cast is very much stronger than it is.

Something like this occurred in the early stages of the Pacific war. The R.A.A.F. Catalina flying-boat strength was appallingly slim and the area to be covered was immense. So the Cat. boys formed themselves into an endless chain, and flew by day and night over the vast tract of the Pacific Where the enemy had his bases. The trick worked. The Jap was bluffed into believing that the R.A.A.F. strength was much more formidable than it was, and he proceeded on his southward drive with circumspection that proved fatal to his hopes.

In the intervening years, the Cat. boats have become famous the world over, and much of that fame has been derived from the exploits in them by members of the R.A.A.F. The Cat. is an American aircraft, designed for naval patrol. It is slow and cumbersome, yet has a tremendous range, and is capable of remaining in the air for practically twenty-four hours. Exigencies of the Pacific front have obliged those who fly the Cats to use them for many purposes besides naval patrol. They have been used consistently as bombers, and their -audacious pilots have- disdained the orthodoxy of high-level bombing and have swooped on their targets in unreasonably steep dives to gain greater accuracy.

They have struck terror into the hearts of the Japanese in many an island base. There is much in their story to substantiate the tribute of a fighter pilot that the Cats have done more in this war than anyone else.

From Truk to Tulagi, north, east, south and west, they have flown more than two million miles. In daylight they have spied out the enemy's secret dumps, in darkness they have blown them up. They have plotted his movements, bombed his bases, attacked his ships, shot up his troops.

It was not until our loss of Rabaul loomed that the Cat. boats suffered their first casualty, and it gives the keynote to the calm courage and determination of the crews who fly these ships by day and night, in fair and foul. The pilot, Flight-Lieutenant R. Thompson, sighted the enemy convoy steaming south. He signalled his base that he would attack "if the convoy didn't hold off". The convoy came on, Thompson went into battle. The Cat. was shot down.

But this was one of the highlights of what is generally a dull and mundane job. Theirs is not the flashing story of the single-seat fighter. Theirs is the hard, long, monotonous drudge, the calmer story, told in longer sentences, of tiresome patrols, strikes at far-off bases, of dull flashes and billowing smoke where their bomb loads fall. Yet there is drama, for those who look for it.

The earliest days of the Cat. squadrons are tied in with the names of Sims, Gurney, Purton, and Hernsworth, all Qantas pilots. They ranged the sea, plotting enemy hide-outs and operational bases. Gurney was killed in an American bomber while returning from Rabaul, and to-day a New Guinea air strip commemorates his deeds and name. Purton was reported missing from Japanese operations in the north-west, and Hernsworth was shot down in the Coral Sea battle.

A Japanese floatplane shot Hernsworth down while he was making a wider reconnaissance than he need have done. But these men took a very serious view of their duty, and all was seldom enough for them. Another of them was A. Norman. Trouble dogged Norman. He got out of Rabaul just before the Japs got in. Then he just beat them out of Gasmata and reached Moresby. The first time the Japs attacked lonely Tulagi, Norman was there. As they bombed the place. Norman and his crew rowed out to their Cat. boat and gave chase. It was a grim joke, a Cat. boat in pursuit of fast modern bombers.

Norman said wryly, "I didn't catch them." Norman was also lost in the Coral Sea battle.

In those days of retreat, Norman's story might well have been the story of all the Cat. boys, and of the whole R.A.A.F. Out of Truk, out of Kavieng, out of Rabaul, out of Tulagi, out of Moresby. But as they were driven out, they struck back, with such vigour and such false appearance of numbers, that the enemy tarried, uncertain, and was, in the ultimate, too late. The Cat. boats, when Tulagi was lost to Australia, even attacked it from Noumea, refuelling on the way from a patrolling corvette. Many times, in secret places, friendly natives refuelled their boats from four-gallon tins of petrol. At others, they were like Scarlet Pimpernels, rescuing people from danger zones by day, hitting the enemy with bombs whenever the chance could be made. It was a case of hit hard and run hard. Later, when the Jap sent down fighters and anti-aircraft guns, it was hide by day and seek by night. In one period of two months they operated from as many as eleven separate bases

In the last twenty-one months, the Cats have been right on the offensive. Their first attack was on Truk. Since then they have attacked the bases which they once held, though tenuously. They have raided Rabaul, Buka, Buin-Faisi area, Kahili, Bulolo, Kavieng, Lae, Gasmata, Gona, and Finschhafen. They have done continuous reconnaissance in the Coral Sea and elsewhere, and they have made a number of notable rescues, some of them in enemy territory. They played an important part in the Solomons campaign. Many of the members of the squadrons have logged in the vicinity of two thousand operational flying hours. Prominent among them are Squadron Leader R. Atkinson, D.F.C.; Flight-Lieutenant T. Duigan, Flight-Lieutenant R. Hirst, Squadron-Leader F. B. Chapman (now missing), and many others. To mention only some names is invidious, as the basis of the squadrons' successes lies in team work, fellowship and straight shooting. That they are so mentioned is merely by way of particularizing the general chores which have been performed by all members of the R.A.A.F. Cat. boat crews in the Pacific war.

YOU'VE GOT TO BE GOOD

THE Beaufort is slipping smooth as silk through the cotton-wool effect of alto-cumulus with all four of us itching to be on the target.

Silent, ground-hugging Beaufighters had discovered a convoy, done it over mildly, then whispered back to base for a refuel while we gave it the heavier stuff. They'd come back for the pickings.

I check everything over again, gas, oil pressure, engine revs. and I get finicky with the tall-trimming gear. Down in the nose, young Dig Barber takes time off from fussing over his bombsight to blare out ahead.

"Sail-ho, me hearties" he calls on the intercommunication, and begins to count aloud the hurrying toy shapes strung out down there on the surface.

Flak starts up before we come above and barely within range. The Beaufighters have put the Nips wide awake -and jumpy- and I push the crate into some neat dodging.

A 4,000-tonner goes into smoke from Plimsoll to poop-deck, but, in Nick the radio man's parlance, we are experiencing interference strength umpteen from the barrage an escort cruiser is sending up - ironmongery of odd sorts - incandescent tracer and fluffy ack-ack, definitely not to be despised.

Young Barber bawls through the intercom., "Line me up on the pride o' the Japanese Navy, pal, and I'll put it you know where."

I nod down at the back of his head, and level for the run-in on the cruiser's starboard beam. I strain hard then for the bomb-aimer's directions.

"Right . . . steaaady . . . ... and I inch my rudder with nervous pressure. Just about then the cruiser's attention is concentrated on us, it being apparent we have evil intent in her particular regard.

Up it comes. You can hear the blast playing tunes on the Beau's transparent nose, and she dances a conga. Left side-skid, then a check from me. Right side-skid-check, and the wheel's pork-greasy from the double sweat I'm in. The temperature's barely half of it.

"Bring her back to port," I hear from Dig sprawled over the bombsight. "How do they expect to see good bombing, behaving like that!" He's a cool son-of-a-gun all right. "Steady, mister ... that's sweet ... I'm about on . . ."

I'm aware that he stiffens . . . . A light on my panel blinks, then the crate leaps upward and Dig sings out, "Bombs gone. Master switch off," like he's doing classroom stuff, and he screws round and watches the stuff go walloping down.

The sound of the explosion reaches me like a "hunh" before Dig's Red Indian scalping howl. "Smacko, all hands will take a bath," he roars.

I can't help bawling, "You beaut," though I'm busy about this time nursing the kite up to the safety of higher altitudes and more distant climes.

The cruiser's mad as hell, and sends up everything but the Adminal's medals, so we sneak off to a safe distance for a look at the damage.

She's a large cruiser about eight thousand tons, with the converted smoke-stack and high fire-control tower. She's lost way, and is belching a smoke column that stinks of oil and cordite, which is a sign that the magazine's contents are going off before they should.

"Maybe I didn't drop 'em down the funnel, but what the hell" crows Dig. Nick comes up the gangway from aft to join in the communal gloat.

"What the hell goes on, exactly?" he asks. "Or should I continue to scream through the intercom. for information I can't get otherwise'.

Nick's a tubby guy, not impressive, but we sort of fall in together at Operations Training Unit, and I just naturally take him as the crew's sparker.

"You bunch of mugs," he says darkly. "What did you do with those eggs?"

Digby gives him that cheeky grin of his, and says, "Quiet, fatty. My superb bombing has stunned us," and I turn the nose of the Beau and put her down so's Nick can see what he can't from his position amidships.

The cruiser is settling, it appears. Anyway, she has a forty-five degree list, and even Jap cruisers don't sail that way.

"I don't get no glammer," complains Nick. "I jes' sit in there with a pair o' cans on my ears listening to nothing and wondering how things are going." Put he looks pleased as a pup as he gazes at the sinking ship.

It is about then the Gremlins take over. Just as I am pulling out of the glide, a cannon-shell bursts plumb in the for-ward compartment, blowing chunks of perspex out of the nose and damn near un-shirting all three of us. Then I hear Geoff Gordon, the rear gunner, reporting the arrival of the convoy's air umbrella -Zeros and FW190s- so I begin making a sincere and conscientious effort to be away from this place, and the hull vibrates from the kick of the Brownings fore and aft as Dig and Geoff cover our retreat.

I head roughly south, but soon I do not get time even to glance at my compass because a couple of the Zeros bother us more than slightly, and I begin to hope that something occurs to these Japs before they make it occur to us.

I don't know how long it is, or how many ocean miles have skimmed along underneath, but I'm beginning to wonder just how much gas those Nips can pack in their paper and bamboo kites.

Gordon has his mike open all the time giving me the good guts on the Zeros' whereabouts and intentions. Miles back there he'd told us when they dumped their belly tanks, so it begins to look to me like they're making it a hara-kiri job, and a couple of bowls of rice extra for the boys back home to whack up.

Also, the bites out of the wing and various holes in the hull indicate that, so far, our luck has been by no means bad.

Gordon starts talking again.

The orange kite dead astern and five hundred above.- A pause, and then: "Keep her straight and level, skipper-I'm tired of this dodging. We'll make it decisive."

"O.K. Good luck, Geoff," I say, and wait with my heart pounding for the shooting to start. Two slant-eyed fanatics whizzing stuff at you isn't comfy and I fear Geoff is buying himself a funeral by shooting it out with them.

"Looks like he has the same idea," Gordon says then. "Holding his fire till he closes in. Good tactics-I'll use 'em myself."

"Eight hundred yards now ... six hundred . . four hundred . . . two hundred. It's moments like these. . . ."

There's plenty of shooting then, and as I'm offering up a prayer for Geoff's soul, the Zero shoots into view weaving madly and giving off that peculiar purple and orange flame. So then there was one, as the nursery rhyme says.

"That's worth a dozen of good Melbourne beer," I tell Geoff. "Are you O.K.?"

"Sound as a bell in wind and limb," he comes back. "But watch George. He's getting out of my orbit and aiming on a belly attack."

I rudder hard and stand the Beaufort on its tail, but she shudders suddenly and I know right away that we are out of the event. My port aileron leaves the main wing to carry on alone, which it can't do, and the Beau wants to flick into a spin. Then Nick is at the catwalk entrance asking what's up, and I can only reply, as my chest seems deflated to zero, "Can you swim, Nick?" and Dig's white face stares at me from below.

Nick says, "No, I can't swim," though I find out afterwards he can. I say, "You'd better jump anyway-go on, you and Dig get out while I hold her up."

Dig says, "No. I'll go back near the tail and help keep it down," and he scrambles aft while he speaks. I hear Nick, the big goop, asking him what is our position, and Dig tells him, "About so and so," because he has a terrific sense of direction and I'm convinced that this boy would give you a correct position even if he was having a bout of the D.Ts, though a position, when you're in a roaring dive and dropping four thousand feet a minute. seems foolish to me just now.

Fifteen seconds more maybe, and just as I'm preparing to say how-do-you-do to my old grandad, who's departed some years now, the crate acts sensibly and flattens out, and though we smack down hard I manage to set down on the surface. Then I black out.

It appears the boys haul me through the zipper escape-hatch and manage to flop me into the rubber dinghy just before the Beau goes under.

I become conscious of things not long after, by a terrific tossing sensation and the sound of an explosion, and I find myself in the water. I decide which way is up, and come to the surface and help the boys night the dinghy.

"Our pal in the Zero tried to crash-dive us," Dig explains. "Missed us by yards."

It is quite a full day.

We lay in the dinghy for quite some time, and I'm figuring it might have been as well if we'd done a nose-dive into the drink-, because the steamer sailings to where we are, are uncertain. In fact I'm sure nobody comes to this place unless they come like 'we did, without a toothbrush and a spare collar and in a hell of a hurry.

And then I notice Nick watching the horizon a lot, which seems funny to me and I ask is he expecting a Sydney ferry or maybe the Queen Mary.

"No," says Nick, "but something should come up soon - I heard one of our crates transmitting just before the Zeros attacked, and he shouldn't have been far away when I sent our position out."

We were pretty dumb for a second, then Digby says in a dazed way, "It ain't human. Little Digby crouches up aft scared to the shirt tails while this hunk of horsemeat is sending stuff - and the kite is standing on her nose, mind you!"

And I grab Nick by the shirt and ask him, "Are you kidding?"

"Just managed to finish a second or two before we hit," says Nick, shading his eyes. "Hope he was listening - should be here by this."

Then I know I couldn't have picked a better Wag if I could have chosen from a thousand of them, and I tell Nick so often in the next few days. But we curse that other operator just as often, and our chances of rescue get slimmer as the days pass, and we fry under that blazing northern sun.

Nick is in bad shape. His flesh hangs from where all the padding has been drained and his lips are puffy and sore.

"He wasn't listening out," he says now and then. "Wasn't listening. . . . You've got to be good ... listen all the time ... let yourself down if you don't . . . other fellers too ... gotta be good . . . that's what they taught me ......

We try to cheer him up though we would feel a lot more like it if we knew we were going to be picked up. We just lie there blistered and raw and wonder who'll be the first we'll have to push overboard.

Then, on the fourth day in the dinghy, a Catalina casually appears and sets down alongside. It appears a station somewhere on the other side of the world hears Nick's message, but owing to priority traffic piled high in front of him he is unable to radio to any one near us sooner.

Big battles can't stop for four fellers on a raft.

Well, we pour plenty of liquor into Nick when we get down to Sydney on sick leave, and he's soon a tubby feller again. We expect a decoration for him before we go back, because I'd recommended him solidly in my report.

Then one day Digby comes into the long bar of the Australia where we're drinking and spreads the afternoon paper out, and we read where Dig and I have been given a D.F.C. each. Wouldn't it rotate you?

And I turn to some of the other pilots round and tell them all about Nick's fine job and how we wouldn't be here only for him, and that apparently the higher-ups consider sinking a Jap cruiser more important than saving our skins.

The boys are sympathetic and one of them says to Nick disgustedly, "And you don't get anything out of it, eh;"

And Nick pulls up his trouser-leg and points to his bandaged knee. "Sure," he says. "Sure. I get a tropical ulcer."

OSCAR MASON