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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 0067.PDF
JANUARY IT, 1940. in the Am More Activities Over the North Sea : The Security Patrol Ex- plained : With the French Air Force on the Western Front : Foreign Aircrajt in Finland (Right) A modern French soundlocator at work. The exact "bal- ance" of souni in the four trumpetreceivers betrays the position of enemy aircraft. THE North Sea continues to be thecentre of air activity. Theoperations of enemy mine-laying aircraft have shown a marked decrease since the institution of the R.A.F. Security Patrol, and there has not been any further reports of the bomb- ' ing and machine gunning of fishing boats now air protec- tion has been provided by the "Kipper Kites." Hostile aircraft appeared over the Shetland Isles on January 1 and two bombs were dropped. The only casual- ties were three sheep. There were no hits on naval vessels nor casualties to their crews. Dornier Surviv ors TT is now confirmed that one of the three Dornier flying •^ boats which were attacked by an R.A.F. Coastal Com- mand aircraft on Wednesday, December 27, was definitely shot down. The three surviving members of the crew were picked up by the Swedish steamer Boden and landed at Kopervik, in Norway. The German airmen stated that their machine had been hit about a hundred times, one of the crew being killed. They were adrift in the collapsible dinghy some eleven hours before being picked up. Another Coastal Command success was reported in an Air Ministry communication on New Year's Day—a good start. During the morning, 130 miles out to sea off the east coast of Scotland, three British aircraft encountered two twin-engined Heinkels. The enemy were engaged at once, and a running fight ensued for the next half an hour. The Heinkels when first seen were in line abreast at about 1,000ft., and one British aircraft, singling out the right-hand machine, scored many hits in the fuselage, engines and wings before the enemy pilot could manoeuvre out of range. Almost immediately the front engine and both wings became a mass of flames, and the machine dived into the sea out of control. One of the crew attempted to escape by parachute, but for some reason or other, probably because he was too low, the drop was not successful, and he disappeared into the water. The other Heinkel fared rather better but did not get away scot free. It was exposed to the concentrated fire of two attackers, and only able to escape by reaching-a convenient cloud. Nothing more was seen of it. The second day of 1940 brought news of further fighting over the North. Sea. The bare announcement was, " There has been extensive air activity over the North Sea to-day and in the neighbourhood of the German coast. During the afternoon a formation of three R.A.F. bombers en- countered a squadron of 12 Messerschmitt long-range fighters well out to sea. The formation, although heavily outnumbered/ gave battle to the enemy. One Messer- schmitt was shot down in flames, and two others were driven down and are likely to have been lost. One of the three bombers has returned safely ; a second was shot down during the encounter; the third is missing." Here is the story. The formation of three Vickers' Wellingtons was on a normal patrol searching for German warships at a point roughly 80 miles north-west of Heligo- land, flying at about 10,000ft. in close formation, when the twelve Messerschmitt Me. no twin-engined long-range fighters made a sudden attack. The battle was at once joined, although the British were hopelessly outnumbered. On his return the pilot of the third machine said, " We were going south when suddenly the look-out man shouted 'Fighters.' Almost before he had given the warning I saw streams of white tracer bullets flashing past on the port side. I then realised this was a serious battle. We had not seen the enemy because they came straight out of the sun. The first bursi of enemy fire penetrated our fuselage but did no material damage. We gave as good as we got. We found ourselves fighting about twelve of the enemy single-handed. More bullets entered our air- craft, and some of them missed us by a few inches." " •«- Six to One "C\)R nearly ten minutes this aircraft fought its way out -*- while no fewer than six of Germany's fighters made three dual attacks. The rear gunner got one and the front gunner claimed another. The rear gunners " bird " was seen to fall out of control, catching fire on the way down, and finally crashing .into the sea still aflame, while the other victim was definitely hit, and was last seen in a steep spiral dive towards the sea. It is improbable that the pilot could have regained control. In the breathing space obtained by these two victories the pilot decided to seek the added protection of flying at sea level and dived from 10,000ft. to about 20ft. above the water. He was, however, immediately pursued by the enemy, and had to skim and dodge for some further thirty minutes before the enemy finally gave up the chase. The Royal Air Force carried out reconnaissance flights over north-west Germany on the night of January 4. All our machines returned safely.
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