Counter Bombs

We’re flying one day, and we were carrying mines. We were gonna mine a harbor near the end of islands called Mergui. There was a series of ships there. And they had these counter bombs that you could set the time, but ships would go over it, and, say, the 5th ship would, it would go up. And then you decide ahead of time where to set up, if this is how they’d probably leave the harbor. And we were flying quite open formation at that time. And all of a sudden, there was a big black explosion, and our aircraft lifted up in the air. And the aircraft just disintegrated, you know. And all there was, was a tinkle of stuff down into the ocean, disappeared, and that was it. And I guess, nobody knows, but they surmise that one of the bombs went off in the bomb bay, and it just blew the aircraft apart.Interviewer: You knew those guys, did you? Yeah, I knew them, yeah. Yeah.Interviewer: Were there other aircraft that you saw go down? Not too many, not that I saw go down, no. No. We were, as I say, you know … it was quite a different war than in, than in Europe where they sent thousands of aircraft over, and so forth. Ours were few and far between. And in an hour or so, you were out of contact. Except by the wireless operator … might get in touch with you, certainly didn’t have any other. Once you were on your own, once you were over there, you’re there. That’s it. I mean, you know, nobody’s gonna come and get you.