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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 1759.PDF
JUNE 20, 1940 543 dived to the ground and found my base engine temperature was now registering 145 degrees and fumes coming from the engine. I switched off to prevent being overcome by ".-the fumes. Made forced landing on aerodrome." But : most pilots have more cheerful reports to make, such as: : "I immediately turned round steeply, as the Me had passed i. .quickly by, and saw the machine a mass of flames, diving ^towards the ground haze." Or : "I then saw the complete 1" tail of the enemy aircraft break off, this aircraft rolling over and diving out of its formation vertically. Another Me blew up and disintegrated." Or: "My windscreen - •• was smothered with oil so that I could only see another ..aircraft by the flames which just showed through the oil." Or: "I saw the fuselage tear up. The rear gunner was lying helpless in the cockpit." A squadron leader whose squadron had just shot down seven and damaged three •-• Ju 87s remarked in his report: "All the Junkers seemed very surprised to see us ; they were obviously not expecting an attack as we were some distance behind the line." -' On Tuesday, June 11, a bomber force, after attacking enemy concentrations in a forest at La Mare, and setting the woods on fire with incendiary bombs, were themselves attacked by a greatly superior number of Messerschmitt fighters. One of our bombers, encountering a formation of twelve Me 109s, was engaged by the fighters which attacked simultaneously from astern, above and below. One Messer- schmitt was almost immediately shot down in flames by a burst of fire from the British observer's gun, which tore chunks of metal out of the fighter's wing-roots, and a few minutes later a second Me log, caught at close range by the bomber's air gunner, was sent plunging down trailing a cloud of black smoke. Another bomber with six Me 109s on its tail dived for cover into a cloud. On coming out it narrowly missed a head-on collision with the leader of an enemy formation which it had been evading. The fighter, apparently shaken by his narrow escape, did not pursue the engagement. A Great Dive ' TR*OR the time being, the feeble raids on this country which -*- were reported in our last issue died down. It seemed that the Heinkels were getting cautious once more. How- ever, on Wednesday, June 12, one of them appeared off the coast of Kent soon after 8 a.m. A Spitfire pilot, patrolling far up above, dived over 11,000 feet to the attack. He must have had a severe headache. during this performance, but he did not seem to mind. After firing the whole of his ammunition, he saw the Heinkel dive into a cloud with black smoke pouring from its port engine. A second Spit- fire took up the chase, followed closely by two more. They could see the Heinkel staggering low over the water, with its tail splashing the surface repeatedly as the pilot tried in vain to continue his flight. Finally, the Heinkel came to rest on the sea, and two members of the crew were seen to climb out into their dinghy. They were picked up and taken to a hospital in a Kent coastal town. Italy's declaration of war was to take effect at midnight, Monday, June 10-Tuesday, June 11, and on the following WAR IN THE AIR (CONT.) A Curtiss H75-C1 single-seater fighterof the French Air Force takes off for the battlefield. morning the bombers on both sides lost no time in getting to work. Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Longmore, the A.O.C.-in-C, Middle East, had squad- rons ready on landing grounds in the desert near to the boundary of Egypt and Libya. These attacked Italian aerodromes in East Libya and found concentrations of Italian aircraft on the ground, and promptly bombed them. They also started fires in the buildings and set one petrol dump ablaze. All petrol in Italian Africa has to be imported by sea, and with the Allied navies hav- ing a great advantage in strength in the Mediterranean, such import is likely to be extremely difficult in the future. The Italian A.A. guns fired at our machines, and fighters went up to attack them, but did them no damage. It was explained that the aerodromes attacked were the prin- cipal Italian bases threatening Egypt and the western deserts. Meantime, other squadrons flew to Italian East Africa and bombed the aerodromes near Asmara, which were the main bases threatening our Red Sea communications and the Sudan. Several direct hits were obtained on hangars. In all these operations three of our machines were lost. There was a surprise intervention that same morning, when heavy bombers of the South African Air Force, evi- dently starting from Kenya, visited the borders of Abyssinia in the neighbourhood of Moyala, and heavily and success- fully bombed Banda Hill and other military objectives. All of the S.A.A.F. machines returned safely to their base. Gen. Smuts is not a man to let the enemy catch him nap- ping in war, and he had sent up his bombers in good time to strike the moment that Signor Mussolini came down off the fence. Bombing North Italy '"THAT night (Tuesday) heavy bombers started off from •*• Britain, flew over North Italy, and attacked targets at Turin and Genoa. One of them failed to return. The Fiat aircraft works and also the Moncenesio engineering works are situated at Turin. An air raid warning was also sounded at Milan, and the correspondent of a New York paper said that " Milan had a bad time of it." On the other side of the picture, Italian aircraft made several raids. There was a whole series of attacks on Malta, and many bombs were dropped, but the raiders kept to a great height and most of the bombs fell in the sea. There were a few civilian casualties, but no damage of military importance was done. Some of the raiders are said to have been shot down. On Wednesday night, June 12, and Thursday morning, raids were attempted on Aden, but no material damage was done. Five Arabs were killed and six wounded in one raid, but one of the raiders was shot down into the sea. It was first hit by A.A. fire, and then a British fighter finished it. The Italian headquarters an- nounced that their bombers had made night attacks on the two French naval bases of Toulon and Bizerta, the latter being in Tunisia. The Middle East continued to send bombers (Blenheims are especially mentioned) against Italian bases in Africa on the succeeding days. The navalbase of Tobruk on the coast of Libya was attacked by waves of Blenheims. Several warships and submarines were found in the har- bour, and one warship was certainly set on fire. A photo- graph taken by one of the later raiders showed that the crew bad tried to beach her. Massawa, the port of the Italian colony of Eritrea, was attacked and a petrol dump was set on fire- The blaze was visible for miles. Towards the end of last week the Germans continued to
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