Post by errolmartyn on Mar 18, 2015 19:22:04 GMT 12
N.Z. AIRMAN'S GIFT
LEADS TO COURT-MARTIAL
(Rec. 9 a.m.)
LONDON, April 8.
A New Zealander, Flight Lieutenant James Samuel Humphries [sic – Humphreys], was court-martialled on a charge of conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline in the Air Force.
The prosecution alleged that Humphries ordered the pilot of a plane of which he was captain to fly down to 500 feet, from which height Humphries dropped three bars of chocolate, attached to a home-made parachute, over the home of a clergyman's daughter. A window from the plane fell out simultaneously. The parachute, which was produced in court, was made from a handkerchief and string. With the package was a note saying, "Dear Cobbles, —I have just managed to buy this. Thy need is greater than mine, so I thought I would deliver it."
Humphries said that the route to his base directly passed over the clergyman's home. "I got the idea of dropping the chocolate by parachute," he said. "I asked the pilot to descend gradually so that I could throw the parachute through the window. As I threw the package my hand struck the window, which fell out."
Witnesses testified that the plane did not fly unusually low.
The Court stated that it had no findings to announce on either charge.
Humphries went to Britain in 1938 and was engaged in operational flights in France in 1940, and led a fighter section in the Baltic of Britain, when lie was badly wounded and was obliged lo bale out.
(Evening Post, 9 April 1942)
Errol
LEADS TO COURT-MARTIAL
(Rec. 9 a.m.)
LONDON, April 8.
A New Zealander, Flight Lieutenant James Samuel Humphries [sic – Humphreys], was court-martialled on a charge of conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline in the Air Force.
The prosecution alleged that Humphries ordered the pilot of a plane of which he was captain to fly down to 500 feet, from which height Humphries dropped three bars of chocolate, attached to a home-made parachute, over the home of a clergyman's daughter. A window from the plane fell out simultaneously. The parachute, which was produced in court, was made from a handkerchief and string. With the package was a note saying, "Dear Cobbles, —I have just managed to buy this. Thy need is greater than mine, so I thought I would deliver it."
Humphries said that the route to his base directly passed over the clergyman's home. "I got the idea of dropping the chocolate by parachute," he said. "I asked the pilot to descend gradually so that I could throw the parachute through the window. As I threw the package my hand struck the window, which fell out."
Witnesses testified that the plane did not fly unusually low.
The Court stated that it had no findings to announce on either charge.
Humphries went to Britain in 1938 and was engaged in operational flights in France in 1940, and led a fighter section in the Baltic of Britain, when lie was badly wounded and was obliged lo bale out.
(Evening Post, 9 April 1942)
Errol
