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Show Interesting Story Of Train Strafing Appearing recently in the Christian Science Monitor was an interesting story concerning the nuisance raids carried out on the enemy's lines of communications in the Mediteriv.Tiean area of operations. The article was written writ-ten by Ronald Stead, staff correspondent corres-pondent fcr The Monitor in that theatre, and follows in full: Behind the German lines in Itcly, the "train gang" flies by night. And I've just met the gang. They are an international bunch of pilots under the Royal Air iForce. Flying their high-speed wooden "Mosquito" f ighterbomb-ers ighterbomb-ers from this airfield, they have what amounts to a roving commission commis-sion to make themselves as big a nuisance as possible along the enemy's lines of communications. Tfiey are freebooters quesliing whtat they may destroy. This usually means trains though they take in road transport columns col-umns and airfields if the trains are as far behind timetable as the Mosquito pilots try to put them. These airmen are specialists. They comprise Britishers, Australians, Aus-tralians, New Zealanders, and Canadians Ca-nadians and they are commanded by British Squadron Leader A. M. Murphy, a tall sparely built young veteran wearing above the left breast pocket his battledress ribbons rib-bons of the Distinguished Service Order, Distinguished Flying Cross and French Croix de Guerre. I asked him what it was like, this train-busting business, and how it Was done. "We aren't briefed in the ordinary ordi-nary sense before we go off," he said. "But each man is alloted an area where he can range at his own sweet will, selecting his own targets of opportunity as they arise. "A pilot often has to be patient while cruising around, waiting like Mister Micfiwber for something to turn up. When it does he swoops down perhaps to as low as 20 feet and gives it the old gun." "Trains ewe our specialty," he continued. "The first thing you see when one of these comes up for an interview is a' jet of white steam in the moonlight and perhaps per-haps a furnace glow from the engineer's en-gineer's cab or if it is an electric train spasmodic flashes from the contact rail. That's the signal to stand by. "Then as the train comes into fuller view, creeping along like a black serpent, we go down to meet it. As the train bowls along one way we arrive about a couple of hundred more miles tn hour faster and when th engine is in our sights 'We let fly with the cannon and machine-gun batteries in the Mosquito's nose. "We come in firing at high speed a mixture of shells and if we see a series 6f bright dots appear along the dark side we know that in RAF parlance "it's h'd it." Sometimes," Squadron Leader Murphy went on, "we sail in from the rear if that is more convenient on account of the mountains which make high-speed night flying rather tricky business in Italy. "Our greatest joy is to hit the engine. For then the train is j obliged to halt until the wreck-I wreck-I clearing gangs come along to ' clear the line a performance that 'doesn't help the Germans any in (getting supplies and reinforce-I reinforce-I ments forward. If we miss the engine the train stops all the same, but can obviously resume its ! journey when we hi.ve gone, j though the driver is not likely to , enjoy the trip as much as before. 1 "The wagons are apt to catch (Continued on last page) Strafing Trains (Continued from page 1) fire of course, whether we hit the engine or not, and once I had the luck to cut an electric power wire and bring it down on the top of what was obviously an ammunition ammuni-tion train. The sequel wiaa an enormous flash that lit up the entire en-tire countryside and a shattering explosion." Railroad traffic has been rather discouraged by the "train-busters," but Germans still sometimes send road transport columns along. If the rote'ds happen to be quiet, too, the Mosquitoes do an "intruder" job on any airfield where night fliers may be landing or taking off. The intruders dive down and catch them when they are most vulnerable during either of these processes. When 'the Mosquitoes began this moonlight marauding 'a modern sky equivalent of old Elizabethan freebooters at sea the Germans were taken by surprise. But the resultant railrond. congestion and general unpleasantness for trans- port personnel mede them take the new problem in Italy seriously. Now trains are being equipped with more antiaircraft gun trucks and rccd columns have increased flak vehicles. "But," said Squadron Leader Murphy, "they haven't much of a ch-nce of success because we arrive ar-rive on them so suddenly and get away so quickly. Far more dangerous danger-ous to us is the mountainous country coun-try which has been responsible for the only losses so far. In each case the men, new to this area, were cVerkeyed and after doing their' job went head on into mountain moun-tain sides." Although in their own typical RAF argot these Mosquito- airmen air-men describe their experience as "having joy," the long high-speed trips are not mere joy rides by any means. For the pilot and navigator who comprise the crew are jammed together very close in the cockpit. If they had to bail out they would scarcely have hope of doing it successfully. But their confidence in the aircraft air-craft that has emerged triumph- eTitly from so many searching tests is such thit, as Squadron Leader Murphy put jt. ".One never gives it a thought." |