A Story of War

More shelling at dawn and at 9am today, despite patrols in the air all night. Pat Weir and a platoon of Kings Own do a successful raid Dhibban way last night without any casualties. I am on at dawn, 4.15, then off 5-9, on 9-1, off 1-5 and on again to dusk. Mostly sitting around in our operations tent while “Doug” Baker presides with three telephones, fixes everything up, serves beer and washes up the glasses, besides having the tent cleaned out. With the help of W.O. Shawn Sheagh, R.E., we snaffle some ice to keep the beer cold in a zinc lined parachute box which is the frigidaire.

I go up before lunch to bomb four cars in a copse and undershoot them. Then at dusk Dan, Gordon Arthur, Alan and myself go up to spot the guns at their dusk shelling. I am just coming home as the sun has disappeared when I see other planes in the air, so reckon I had better stay up a bit longer. I turn and notice a flash in a copse. I climb up and drop four bombs on the wrong copse, then four bombs on the right one (near “Camel Turn”), all of which overshoot. But I get in three good long bursts with my front gun at it, and Cpl Sanderson in the back does some good work with his Lewis gun. I report to P/O Shotter in the ops rooms, find the copse on a photographic map, and they are all pleased as it is a new one. I then find there was no shelling at the time I saw the flash, so it can’t have been a gun!