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Aviation History
1938
1938 - 0589.PDF
FLIGHT. g MARCH, 3, 1938. No. 214 (B.) Squadron's H.P.Harrows demonstrate echelon, stepped up — an unusualformation for heavy bombers. At first, the Wing's Hand- ley Pages were used for anti- submarine patrols, and on one of tile first of these pat- rols a Handley Page sank an enemy destroyer off Zee- brugge. That was a great score. The enemy, however. was stirred up by this loss, and shortly afterwards a German single-seater sea- plane avenged the destroyer by shooting down the vic- torious Handley Page. The heavy machines were then turned on to night bombing exclusively, but the defences of Ostend, Zeebrugge, and Bruges were strengthened, and after a while our machines seldom came back from raids over these towns without bullet holes in them somewhere. Then the enemy used to send bombers to raid Dunkirk aerodrome as the Handley Pages were coming home, and sometimes the latter had to land on the beach. Later on a German sea- plane used to come down and sit on the water just off the beach and wait for the returning Handley Pages. When they came the pilot would take off and attack them. In one night this German bagged two F.E.s and shot a Handley Page about badly. The popularity of the Handley Page is easy to under- stand. The engines were reliable, for one thing, and during the War that was a very great and not too common a thing. Then each machine could carry a bomb load of from 1,344 to 1,793 II). The same load carried by D.H.4S would have required six machines. The actual saving in petrol was worth-while, though economy of petrol was not much regarded during the War. The accuracy of their bombing was a point on which No. 7 and No. 14 took justifiable pride. It must be re- membered that the towns which they had to attack were all in Belgium, and were peopled by our Allies. The in- habitants suffered much from being under enemy rule, and it would have been just too much if they had suffered as well from the bombs of their friends. The docks at Bruges are right on the edge of the town, but though they were bombed incessantly, very little damage was done to the town by the night bombers. The bombing, however, was not always carried out scathelessly. One rainy and stormy December night a pilot was returning from a successful raid upon the Bruges docks, and when he got near the aerodrome he could not see the ground. He came down, however, and landed much too fast, uprooted three small trees, and turned the machine right over on its back. They were on the wrong side of a canal, and both pilot and observer were pinned under the wreckage, and the pilot's head was held against the ground by one of the engines. Petrol poured all over them, but, fortunately, no fire broke out. For some time the aerodrome men could not find the wreck in the dark- ness, and when they did several men swam the canal, but could not raise the tail of the heavy machine without further help. It was nearly an hour before enough men reached it to be able to lift it, and then they had to be very careful not to let the engine crush the pilot's head. Ultimately both were rescued and were little the worse for their adventure. In March, 1918, the Germans began their last great offensive, and the Army begged the Navy for air help. Nos. 7 and 14 Squadrons were ordered to bomb the rail- way station at Valenciennes for all they were worth, so as to interrupt the flow of reinforcements reaching the German fighting line. On the night of March 26-27 ten Handley Pages set out on this mission. Three failed to find the target, but bombed other railway stations, and twelve 112 lb. bombs went down into the congested station of Tournai. The other seven machines let go four 250 1b. bombs and seventy-six 112-pounders on to the packed station at Valenciennes. No doubt that meant some relief to the hard-pressed British infantry. . During March per- sonnel were taken from Nos. 7 and 14 Squad- rons to form No. 15 Squadron (now No. 215 Bomber Squadron sta- tioned at Driffield). On April 1 the Royal Air Force came into being, and the figure 200 was R.A.F. Official Photograph, CrownCopyright. A war-time memory ofNo. 214 Squadron, or, as it was then, No. 5 Wing,R.N.A.S., later divided into No. 7 and No. 14Squadrons. The picture shows a 0/400 HandleyPage safely home after being " winged " by anti-aircraft fire.
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