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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 1407.PDF
MAY 9, 1940 439 in the Am Withdrawal from Namsos : Bombing the Aerodromes : Damage at Clarion The Heinkel concern has developed runners which can be applied to the undercarriage of a floatplane and enable it to operate front snow-covered ice. Here is an He 115 seaplane so equipped. THE most important news since our last issue wasthe statement made by the Prime Minister onThursday, May 2, in the House of Commons, in which he announced the withdrawal of the British troops from Aandalsnes, the landing place to the south of the German base at Trondhjem. Namsos has also been evacuated. The withdrawal was very skilfully carried out, and we did not lose a man in the process. This means that the Germans can effect a junction between their troops based on Oslo and those in Trondhjem without further opposition, and that for the moment they will have undis- puted control of all Southern Norway. Our men, and presumably the French Chasseurs Alpins, remain in posses- sion of their positions round Narvik, which ought soon to fall into our hands. This Allied withdrawal is admittedly due to the action of the German aircraft in preventing the landing of heavy armament from our transports. We have been unable to stop their action, for only a few anti-aircraft guns had been got ashore, while the fighters which had tried to work from frozen lakes had been harried and had found the lakes very unsatisfactory as air bases. The Germans had seized all the important aerodromes in Norway in their first rush, Stavanger being the most important of them, and despite the valiant and persistent efforts of the R.A.F. to put those aerodromes out of action, German bombers continued to attack our troops and to bomb to bits the towns, Namsos and others, round which our men were lying. They also did much damage to the landing stages at the little harbours where our men had disembarked and where it had been hoped to unload the heavy guns, tanks, and other necessary weapons and impedimenta. The German aircraft, working with their Army, and with their bases protected from ground attack by that Army, proved most efficient long-range guns—• which is the primary role of the bomber aeroplane. We do not yet know all the facts about this campaign, but judging from what we do know we can hardly help reflecting on what seems to be the failure of bombers to throw aerodromes out of action. The subject was con- siderably discussed by thoughtful writers before the war, and a. study of their articles left one with a feeling of doubt as to the profit to be derived from such action. The history of the last month has done nothing to dispel that doubt. Stavanger is acknowledged to be the most important air base in Norway, and it has been hammered with little cessation by the R.A.F. and once bombarded by the Fleet. The aerodromes at Aalborg and Oslo have also received their meed of attention. Numbers of German machines on all the landing grounds must have been destroyed, and the lives of the ground parties which had to live and work on them or round them must have been made miserable—when they were not cut short. Yet for all that a constant stream of German bombers raided Aandalsnes, Namsos, and the other British bases, and, in effect, drove our troops out of the country. As an arm of the German Army, the Luftwaffe has justified its existence and its special Army training, and we may pay a tribute to the determination of the German airmen who continued the work in spite of all that the opposing bombers could do to stop them. We had already concluded that bombers were powerless to stop the work of a Fleet at sea, and now it looks as if we must conclude that bombers are powerless to stop the work of an enemy aerodrome. That bombers could, when unopposed by fighters or even by an adequate number of A.A. guns, put a stop to the operations of ground troops had never been in question. In fact, it is surprising that our troops were able to land and to re-embark without loss. That our heavy arms could not be landed while the Luftwaffe was able to operate was not in the least surprising. The Clacton Crash TDEFORE proceeding to deal with the individual events ot -*-* the last week, we may mention an incident which, though not of great importance in itself, aroused a good deal of interest in this country. On Tuesday night, April 30, enemy aircraft approached the East Coast at several points, apparently with the intention of laying mines. One at least approached Clacton. No air-raid warning was sounded, but anti-aircraft guns opened fire and seem to have hit a Heinkel m. The pilot must have realised that he could not get home, so he came inland over Clacton and flew round at a low height for over half an hour, dropping flares and evidently looking for a place to land. Soon after midnight the machine crashed, per- haps through having hit a house or a tree, and came down on top of a lot of houses. A mine which it was carrying exploded and caused wide havoc. At least fifty houses were either destroyed or so badly damaged that they will
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