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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 1728.PDF
534 JUNE 13, 1940 WAR IN THE AIR (CONTINUED FROM PACE 525) In the western battlefield damage was inflicted on rail communications over a wide area. At Hirson, to the east of St. Quentin, where more than ioo bombs were dropped, the railway junction and marshalling yards were hit, the main road was pitted with bomb craters and several large fires were started. Another busy railway junction a few miles to the north was subjected to a heavy attack. Flames shot 50ft. into the air, followed by explosions which continued as the raiding aircraft passed out of sight of the targets a quarter of an hour after the attack. While these attacks were in progress, other units of the raiding forces were engaged in similar operations in the neighbourhoods of Abbeville, Amiens, Arras and Etaples. A convoy half a mile long sighted by parachute flares on the road near Hesdin was hit by four high-explosive bombs which wrecked vehicles and set the nearby woods on fire. On the Arras-Doullens road a line of armoured vehicles was thrown into confusion by a salvo which fell across the centre of the column and started fires on each side of the road. In another attack on a convoy of supply lorries the bomb aimer reported that his bombs '' landed in the middle of about 20 vehicles." Other raiders bombed the railway sidings and junctions within their areas. Berlin Bombed The French Armee de V Air was naturally pretty fully employed on the battle front along the Somme and Aisne. None the less, France did not rest content with her raid on Munich as the sole reprisal for the German raid on Paris. On the night of Friday, June 7, a squadron of French naval aircraft bombed certain factories in the suburbs of Berlin. This was the first occasion in either this or the last war on which bombs have been dropped on any part of Berlin. However, the leaflet raids of the R.A.F. must long ago have disturbed the Berliners' idea that whoever else got bombed, they must be safe. Meanwhile, for several nights in succession individual German raiders crossed the coast of Britain and dropped some bombs. They did extraordinarily little damage. One of the bombers crashed on Friday night in East Suffolk. Two of the crew were killed and the third died later in hospital. Some damage was done to house property, but it was not in the least extensive. The bombers seem to have been looking for our aerodromes, and one at least was discovered. Bombs were dropped on the flare path and, an airman was killed. Loss of H.M.S. "Glorious" Monday, June 10, it was announced that the British '. forces had been withdrawn from Norway, together with certain units of the Norwegian Army, and that King Haakon had been brought to England in a British war- ship. It was held easier and cheaper to blockade Narvik from the sea. On the previous day reports had been received of a naval engagement off the coast of Norway, and on the Monday evening the Admiralty announced that, as it had not been found possible to establish communication with certain ships, it had to be presumed that the following vessels had been lost: H.M.S. Glorious, the transport Orama, the tanker Oilpioneer, and the destroyers H.M.S. Ardent and Acasta. The destroyers had been escorting the aircraft- carrier Glorious. A German communique stated that there were several hundred survivors from these ships. The Orama was not carrying troops at the time. H.M.S. Glorious was a sister ship of the Courageous, which was sunk by a submarine earlier in the war. Each was a ship of 22,500 tons, and had been originally designed as a large, fast, unarmoured cruiser, but was converted as an aircraft carrier after the last war. The Glorious could carry 48 aircraft, and with flying personnel on board would have a complement of over 1,200 officers and men. Italy Declares War CIGNOR MUSSOLINI declared war on the AUies on *^ Monday, June 10. Evidently he considered that the progress of the German attack on the French and British Armies on the Somme and Aisne justified him in dragging Italy into the war with a prospect of emerging as a victor and sharing the spoils. He had waited a long time to see (in common parlance) which way the cat would jump. We are all convinced that he did not wait long enough. The Italian Navy is heavily outnumbered and outgunned by the British and French Fleets in the Mediterranean. From the naval point of view he must rely on Italy's large force of submarines. To this must be added the Regia Aero- nautica, the Italian Royal Air Force, which is, like the R.A.F., a separate Service—in fact, the only other separate Air Force in the world. Some details of the Regia Aero- nautica and its machines are given elsewhere in this issue. It has been organised for a Mediterranean war. A consider- able proportion of its machines are obsolescent, and a pro- gramme of expansion and re-equipment has been under- taken, which could hardly be completed in less than three years. Italian aircraft firms have lately had difficulty in getting materials for construction, and in consequence much of the airframe work is of wood. Entry into the war is not likely to ease that situation. Italy has not built aircraft carriers, as shore-based air- craft have an advantage over ship-planes, and, by means of the various Italian air bases in the Mediterranean, Italian bombers are able to spread their activities over that sea. Apart from Italy, Sicily, Sardinia and Libya, there are Italian bases at Rhodes and other Dodecanese islands, and at the little island of Pantellaria, in the narrows between Sicily and Tunisia. The Italians seem still to believe that aircraft can get the better of a Navy, and so discount, the superior strength of the British and French Fleets. Experi- ences in the North Sea have afforded no support for that theory, and the Allies await a further test with complete confidence. This Ju 88 was shot down during the first raid on Paris.
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