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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 1408.PDF
440 MAY 9, 1940 have to be demolished. One married couple and one other person were killed and nearly 200 people were injured, many of them by broken glass. Over thirty serious cases were taken to hospital. Of course the crew of the Heinkel were themselves killed. Apart from the success of the gunners in hitting the raider, the satisfactory feature of the incident was the splendid way in which all the A.R.P. organisations of Clacton came into action. In the shortest possible time the rescue parties and ambulance squads had dealt with all the injured. Some people, however, are asking why nothing could be done during the half hour or more in which the machine was flying low over the town. Now to return to operations off Norway. Some details have been made public of the work of the Coastal Com- mand during the campaign. Their flying boats have landed British experts at various points on the coast, and their aircraft have also explored and photographed nearly all if not quite all the fjords in the area of operations. On one occasion a photographer saw a speck in his view- finder, which on closer inspection proved to be a U-boat lying in shallow water close to the shore in a fjord. It had no chance of submerging, and the Sunderland WAR IN THE AIR (CONTINUED) A Lockheed Hudson of the Coastal Commandhas a look-see in a typical Norwegian fjord. The Hudsons have been doing magnificent work off the Norwegian coast. promptly dropped two bombs. One hit the submarine on top; the other burst beside and below it. The U-boat was lifted out of the water by the explosion, and could be put down as written off. On another occasion a Sunderland flying close to the surface of the sea near Molde Fjord, found itself directly beneath three enemy bombers, Junkers 88s. It had left its base in Scotland and had landed in a fjord near Molde alongside a British destroyer, to which it had been sent to deliver certain in- formation. Scarcely had the flying boat come to rest, a short distance from the warship, when twelve Junkers 88s, in four flights of three, ap- peared over the town of Molde and proceeded to bomb it. The dozen enemy bombers next turned their attention to the flying boat and the destroyer. The captain of the flying boat had just boarded the destroyer when a whaler which had taken him off was sunk by a bomb. Both the flying-boat and the destroyer had to take avoiding action from the attack, during which one stick of bombs was aimed at them unsuccessfully from each of the three groups of Junkers. After half an hour, its mission completed, the flying boat took off, its engines very hot from continuous taxi-ing over the fjord to evade the repeated attacks. It had just become air-borne when it was intercepted by a Messer- schmitt no. Bursts of machine-gun fire were exchanged. After the flying boat had fired, about 700 rounds the Messerschmitt glided fast towards the shore, apparently in difficulties. When the flying boat returned to its base its crew learned that a message had been received from a British officer at Molde stating that the Messerschmitt had crashed. The captain of the Sunderland flying boat, a flight- lieutenant, described his experiences on his return. He said: '' We seemed to spend most of our time hopping from one hot spot to another. It is extraordinary that none of us was even scratched. As we got out of the whaler which took us to the destroyer a bomb dropped in the sea close beside the boat. The naval ratings who manned the whaler and I had just reached the destroyer's deck when a bomb explosion blew the empty boat right out of the sea in several pieces. Even the short return passage to my aircraft from the destroyer in another boat was an adventurous trip. The Junkers were droning overhead in a continuous procession, dropping their bombs all around. Their aim was good—but not good enough. My co- pilot whom I had left in the Sunderland was able to avoid damage by taxi-ing about, and we in the small boat also steered clear of the bursting bombs. We had hardly got in the air again when a Mes- serschmitt no attacked us in a shallow dive. A Dornier Do 18 flyingboat as seen from a Blenheim, which justafter this picture was taken shot it down intothe sea.
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