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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 0638.PDF
206 MARCH y, 1940 WAR N THE AIR (CONTINUED) prepared in case the pilot should attempt to land. He came lower, and the watchers saw the wildly kicking tail jumping^in the light of the flares. The aircraft came in crab-wise, touched down on the aerodrome, and straight- ened up. When the damaged tail was inspected, it was found that, in addition to the broken hinge, a fracture had started across the main tailplane and had crept two-thirds of the way across. This flight was a tribute to the quality of British aircraft and the flying capacity of the crew, and, incidentally, to the efficiency of the black-out in northern England. Showing Mr. Sumner Welles "IV/TR. SUMNER WELLES, who is touring Europe to -"•*• gather first-hand material for a report to President Roosevelt, spent last Saturday night in Berlin. Of course this made no difference to the plans already laid by the R.A.F., but it so happened that on that night some British machines paid another visit to the German capital. A.A. guns on the outskirts opened fire on them, coloured search- lights were displayed, and at first some German fighters were seen, though no combat took place. Undisturbed by this hostile activity the British bombers flew over the city and dropped parachute flares as well as leaflets. We may imagine that the American envoy had a look at the display, and perhaps he has secured one of the leaflets as a souvenir. His German hosts would tell him that he could quite safely go out to watch, as British bombers do not drop bombs on residential centres, or, so far, on German soil of any sort. The experience would doubtless make a due impression on the American observer. All the British machines returned safely that night. There have, in fact, been a number of flights in the past week over various parts of Germany. Berlin has been visited more than once, and so have Kiel and other ports on the Baltic. The lack of opposition, or rather the in- effectiveness of the attempts at opposition, is certainly remarkable, for the Germans would certainly like to bring down our machines if they could. A very bad case of the violation of Belgian neutrality by a German machine occurred on Saturday, March 2, when a German bomber flew over the Ardennes. Three Belgian fighters went up to order it off, but the German opened fire and hit all three Belgian machines. One caught fire and the pilot was killed, while the other two pilots came down by parachute. The Times Brussels correspondent says that the German machine was a Dornier 17. The German official statement says that the Belgian fighters were of the Hurricane type, and that the German pilot took them for British. A tragedy took place on Sunday, March 3, when some of our own fighters saw a British machine over Kent and mistook it for a German. They shot it down in flames, and it fell in the neighbourhood of Meopham, quite close to the scene of a tragic civil air crash in 1930. In the foreground i% a reconnaissancetype Potez 63 as used by the French. Behind it are some Liore 45 bombersstraight off the production line. The Potez has Gnome-Rhone engines andthe Liore, Hispanos. The British India Company's steamer Domala (8,441 tons) was bombed and sunk by a Heinkel be- tween 4 and 5 a.m. on Saturday morning, in the light of the waning moon. She was sailing from Antwerp with 143 British Indian subjects, presumably lascars, who had been re- leased by the German Government and were being repatriated. She had a crew of 150. Four bombs were released, of which three struck the ship, setting her on fire, and killing the captain. The majority of the passengers and crew were picked up, many of them in- jured, by ships, but 20 British out of 48 and 88 Indians out of 253 are missing. German air attacks on merchant shipping have gone oncontinuously, though the arming of British ships has had good results. German Camouflage /^ERMAN aircraft shot down in Great Britain have beenw camouflaged in several different ways: the Heinkel 111K shot down on October 28th had all its upper sur- faces painted a dark green, similar to the green in our own camouflage colours, while the under side was pale blue. This machine had the squadron crest painted on either side of the fuselage beneath the cockpit and carried identi- fication lettering adjacent to the German markings on the fuselage. Other Heinkels (and Dornier 215's), however, have been dark green on top with the same light blue, under surfaces, some having lettering on the fuselage and others not. The Heinkel which crashed at North Berwick was dark grey, but had red spinners on the airscrews and the extreme tail of the fuselage was also red. The first detailed photographof the nose of the Junkers Ju 88 bomber. It stronglyresembles that of the Do 215. Although in some respects itis very efficient, it gives a bad entry.
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