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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 1886.PDF
JULY 4, 1940 Of the twenty-two aircraft shown on Schiphol aerodrome, ten are obviously damaged. If our memory serves, the canal is higher than the aerodrome and a lucky hit on the bank would be useful. (Below) Searchlights and missiles as seen from a night bomber over .the Ruhr. Searchlights broaden and show as a circle as they approach and hold the machine ; the criss-cross lines are tracer bullets and the tracks of incendiaries appear as "tram lines." engaged by an anti-aircraft battery. The Squadron Leader waited until the anti-aircraft fire ceased and then attacked. After the first burst from his eight machine guns, the Heinkel became enveloped in a cloud of black smoke. The Spitfire pilot broke off the engagement while anti-aircraft guns again engaged the enemy. When they had ceased firing the Squadron Reader made a second attack. "Very soon afterwards the Heinkel jettisoned its bombs," said the Squadron Leader when he landed. " By this time there was a stream of white smoke from both engines and I noticed its wheels were down. What looked like small pieces of cotton wool then dropped from the enemy aircraft. They may have been parachutes." As the enemy lost height the attack was taken up by the sergeant pilot. The Heinkel finally crashed into the sea. Another Heinkel, which was shot down by a fighter pilot, was seen to dive into the sea off the Yorkshire coast. - A search- light crew watched a Dornier first hit by anti-aircraft gunfire and then attacked and shot down into the sea off the Yorkshire coast by a Spitfire pilot. Although the British pilot was wounded, he succeeded in flying his aircraft back to its base. He is now in hospital. WAR IN THE AIR (CONTINUED) On the night of Wednes- day-Thursday, June 26-27, the raiders lost three machines and a fourth was known to be seriously dam- aged. The first bomber des- troyed, a Heinkel 111, was shot down off the South-East Coast shortly after midnight by a Hurricane. The pilot, a Squadron Leader, had his enemy pointed out to him by "a tremendous concentra- tion of searchlights." The second, a Junkers 88, was attacked by a Spitfire pilot over the East Coast. The pilot saw it explode in mid- air, his bullets having struck the bomb storage chamber. A Flight Lieutenant in a Blen- heim fighter also saw a Heinkel off the South Coast "well held by searchlights." He opened fire, which was continued by the Blenheim's rear gunner. The pilot con- sidered that the Heinkel was damaged and the rear gunner probably killed. "The searchlights," he said, "were very efficient. They never left the target and never illu- minated our aircraft." The Germans appear to be using some delayed action bombs in their raids on Eng- land. During Wednesday
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