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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 0801.PDF
MARCH 14, 19 \o having the enemy at a disadvantage, pressed home his attack. The Messerschmitt was seen to go down appar- ently out of control and is believed to have been severely damaged. Our second fighter was forced to break off the engagement owing to a damaged airscrew. Neverthe- less, both he and the leader of the patrol, in spite of the damage they had sustained, landed safely. War has its humours as well as its horrors, and Red Tape can wrap itself round the pilot of a fighter if he claims the spoils which have fallen to his guns. Members of the Fighter Command squadron which shot down a German Heinkel bomber in Cresswell Bay, Northumber- land, on February 3, have been told that they are liable in law to pay salvage and other charges on the wreckage which was washed ashore from the bomber. Two More Heinkels - '•"• TWO Heinkels were shot down over the North Sea onThursday, March 7, one by Spitfires of the Fighter Command and the other by a-machine of the Coastal Com- mand. Fighter aircraft shot down another on Friday, the 8th. • .. The Spitfires which gained the success on the Thursday were a patrol of four, the pilots including one New Zea- lander, two Scots, and a sergeant from Sussex. The Hein- kel was first seen flying east at a height of some 27,000ft. off the coast of Aberdeenshire. A. A. guns opened fire while the Spitfires climbed to attack. The combat was brief, and one of the Heinkel's engines was straightway put "out of action. The German pilot turned and tried to reach the land, but could not do so. The machine came down in the sea, and the Spitfire pilots saw a rubber boat launched. They reported this to the shore, and a R.A.F. seaplane tender put out to rescue the survivors. So hurriedly did it start that there was no time to lay in extra provisions, but there was a bottle of rum on board. The boat put off at 3 p.m., and the journey to where the Heinkel had been shot down took four hours. A Coastal aircraft was wait- ing overhead to guide the rescue boat, and it fired coloured lights to show the way to the boat. Only one man was found in the rubber dinghy, the N.C.O. pilot, and he had been wounded-in the shoulder and legs. Of the other three, one had been killed, and the other two so severely wounded that they were drowned in trying to get into the dinghy. The pilot was taken on board, but while a tot of rum was being poured out for him, the pitching of the launch in the swell caused the bottle to fall and be broken. The German, who spoke good English, told the rescuers that in the rubber dinghy they would find a bottle of whisky, a bottle of soda water, and chocolates and biscuits. The man's wounds were dressed and he was given dry clothes. A few minutes later he was fast asleep. Meantime the weather had got worse, and the launch was 60 miles from the shore. There was danger of running on a sand bank, and so the launch had to lay off at sea the whole night—a night of rain and intense cold. At 9 a.m. next morning they reached land, and the wounded prisoner was sent to hospital. On the same day the Coastal Command was quite busy. One of its machines sighted a Heinkel 115 twin-float sea- plane about a mile ahead. The British aircraft pursued, overtook it and attacked from dead astern. Steady fire was maintained during the approach. At 150 yards it was apparent that bursts were entering the enemy's fuselage. At 50 yards range the attack was pressed home. There was evidence now that the German rear gunner had either been disabled or killed. Until then, he had fought back vigorously. One of the British crew then signalled that his gun had jammed, and the aircraft was flown into cloud to allow the fault to be remedied. With all his guns again serviceable, the pilot emerged and saw his opponent below him. He dived to renew the combat at close range and the damaged Heinkel was driven to find refuge in cloud. The British aircraft, which was unscathed in the action, searched for its adversary unavailingly, and then proceeded on its patrol. Soon afterwards, the pilot saw three German patrol vessels, which he immediately attacked with bombs. With a storm of anti-aircraft fire around him, he could only observe one of the bomb-bursts—hardly the distance °i a cricket pitch, as he described it, from one of the ships. Fl u\ DROPPING THE LEAFLETS : " I can say that there is aconsiderable body of evidence that these leaflets are read by members of the German public who are glad to read them,notwithstanding the severe penalties with which they are threatened." (Sir Kingsley Wood.) Having practically no machine-gun ammunition left, and having expended all his bombs, the pilot was obliged to break off the action. Thereafter he went on with his reconnaissance. Another pilot of the same squadron on a different patrol saw a Heinkel floatplane almost at sea level. He dived from 2,000ft. and attacked it on the starboard quarter with his machine-guns. He then climbed back to his original height and dived again with his front gun in action. The German rear gun, which had fired steadily without result during .both attacks, was silenced. The enemy aircraft thereupon made for dense clouds through which it was chased for twenty minutes. During the chase it was seen on four occasions in the clouds, and each time bursts of fire were sent into it. ^ ' Bomber Command Busy * * '"THE Bomber Command had also been industrious ia •*- the early hours of that busy Thursday. It sent aircraft over most of the principal cities and sea-ports, in N.W. Ger- many, including Bremen, Hanover, Hamburg, Wilhelms- haven and Cuxhaven, while other aircraft maintained the R.A.F.'s customary •"security patrol" over the island bases of German mine-laying seaplanes. Intensive searchlight activity marked the passage of the reconnaissance aircraft over Germany. Beams of a bluish hue were most frequently encountered, and on two occasions our aircraft were held for nearly half a minute in,the beams of a number of converged lights. Near Cux- haven a battery of 20 to 30 searchlights came into action on the approach of our aircraft, but was quickly evaded. -Over Bremen, anti-aircraft guns opened heavy fire. Two aircraft, flying with their navigation lights on at a height of 10,000ft., were also seen by the crew of one British bomber when over Heligoland Bight, but there was no attempt to attack. All our bombers returned safely to their bases, having covered in the aggregate a total of over 10,000 miles in the course of their night's reconnaissances.
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