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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 1565.PDF
MAY 30, 1940 489- MR in the AIR Battle for Channel Ports Continues : The R.A.F. Continues to Harass the Enemy FOR yet another week the German drive for the Channelports has gone on with scarcely any perceptible slack-ening in intensity—or is there just a slight dulling of the first keen edge ? Reports of air combats talk of losses in twenties and forties. No longer do we hear claims of ninety or a hundred brought down in a single day. Second- line machines such as the Junkers Ju 86 and DO 17s begin to put in an appearance in Flanders and, although the position of the Allied forces is serious, it is by no means so bad that only reserve material need be used against them. A Dangerous Position the face of it, the German disposition of his troops is equally critical for him, because a week of rain and low visibility could easily land their advanced mechanised units in a major disaster. Until now the weather has been dry and it can easily be seen, from photographs taken in France, that where the R.A.F. have scored direct hits on important road junctions, the enemy tanks and transport have just skirted the crater and passed on. A week of rain would involve them in a sea of mud which is always in favour of the side with the shortest communications. Low visibility would prevent the use of aircraft bombing to anything like the extent it has been used up to the present, and under such circumstances the French should not have great difficulty in closing the Bapaume-Peronne gap which is the focal point of the whole battlefield. This may sound very much like wishful thinking—if it rains it is a fact. However, so far the Germans in their air tactics have followed their tradition of mass attack, irrespective of losses, as followed in 1914. The increased tempo of modern warfare has the difference in effect that a superiority in weight of attack achieves results more rapidly—and those results may be more decisive. For this reason it must be expected that the enemy will continue to concentrate every ounce of their air power into consolidating and enlarging their gains in Scandinavia and the Lowlands. It is now revealed that the bombing of the German occupied aerodrome at Waalhaven was not the first war outing of the new Bristol Beaufort; it had already been used with con- siderable success in the Norwegian campaign. The Beaufort, it will be remembered, is a mid- wing all-metal monoplane fitted with two Bristol Taurus sleeve-valve engines. The wing span is about 58 feet and the length 44 feet. It is used for bombing, reconnaissance, torpedo- dropping, and general purpose duties. Carry- ing a torpedo or a bomb-load, and defensively armed with one mid-fuselage turret, the Beau- fort is cast for an important part in the naval and coastal operations which may develop off the Low Countries. Although the Beaufort was designed by the Bristol Company immediately after the Blenheim, it is not a mere develop- ment of the Blenheim—which itself has been used extensively in attacks on enemy cruisers. The Beaufort is considerably faster than the Blenheim and, having been designed especially for the job, is the finest machine of its type in the world. It got its name from the Dukes of Beaufort. In attacking armed surface craft torpedo-dropping aircraft usually dive from a Parachute jumping practice from a Ju 52 onthe ground. " Flight " photograph. The demonstration by Herr Seimondl of the quick-opening Eschner parachute at the opening of Luton Aerodrome in1938. Note the ton canopy
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