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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 0163.PDF
JANUARY l8, 1940. 59 in the Am The Effect of Shell-guns : Exciting Eye-witness Accounts of Battles On the occasion ot His Majesty's visit to the Western Front he was shown a recognition chart at one of the forward anti-aircraftunits. The chart embodies pictures of enemy aircraft issued by the French Air Ministry which were based upon the many exclusive drawings which have appeared in the columns of Flight. THE outstanding air news of the past week, in factof the whole war, is that of the successful flight byR.A.F. machines embracing the whole depth of Germany and the dropping of leaflets and English news- papers over Prague and Vienna. Goering's air knights have again lent a helping hand in the unrestricted war against neutral and enemy merchantmen, even going so far as to attack lightship keepers. On the night of January 9 our machines were again engaged on patrol over enemy seaplane bases, and bombs were dropped near the island of Sylt. Apparently the Hindenburg Damm, which bridges Sylt and the mainland, received some damage. The area is close to the Danish frontier and it is thought probable that some harm which was done to Danish property was caused by our machines. If so, full restitution will be made. The new Me no fighters (see page a) were in evidence again in a scrap between a formation of our machines over the North Sea and a-strong enemy force. The fight proved another example of the wisdom in arming our bombers with powered turrets and of flying in close formation so as to bring terrific and, at the same time, well aimed cross fire to bear on the attackers. One of our machines was lost, but we bagged one Messerschmitt Me no, shot down in the sea, and one forced down in Denmark. In this respect it is also significant that twice as many German fighters have been destroyed in France as any other type of enemy aircraft, and in a raid on Heligoland only two out of twenty German fighters sighted made any attempt at attacking our bombers. Here is an account of the skirmish by one of the gunners who took part. "I thought at first there were only two of them," he said. "They attacked in turn, obviously following a pre- arranged plan. Then we saw the others waiting up above to take their turn, and soon things got busy. We came down from 5,000ft. almost to sea-level as soon as we were attacked, so that they could not get beneath us. We kept close formation. "The fighters attacked in a shallow dive, usually from • the quarter or from the beam, opening fire with cannon and machine guns from a distance of about 600yd., but seldom closing to nearer than 200yd. They seemed anxious to get out of range of our guns and usually turned away when we opened fire. As they broke away, climb- ing for another attack, they showed us their bellies, and our tracers seemed to be going straight into them. Certainly some of them must have gone home heavier than they set out, because some of our chaps fired more than 500 rounds during the action—and they did not all miss! " The engagement lasted for some twenty-five minutes, each fighter making from eight to ten attacks. The only British casualty occurred early in the action when one of our aircraft—apparently hit in one engine—was forced to drop back and was immediately pounced on by a fighter which closed to within 100yd., while a second £ghter waited above to reinforce the attack. A few minutes later a German fighter was brought down. In seeking to break up the British formation, it dived between two sections of our aircraft, and turning to launch a beam attack, it was
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