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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 1955.PDF
JULY II, 1940 21 MR in the Am Not bad for amateurs : Thirteen Capronis on fire after an R.A.F. attack on an Italian East African aerodrome. the other evening referred to the R.A.F. as "that amateur air force." The Italian radio The " Scharnhorst" Bombed at Kiel : The Or an Action ''.:'•''•'• •-i-'"l'••.'••"••:".•-.:.•?/--"•.•;, Raids on Britain ~ ? - - More Petty ANUMBER of striking events have taken place sinceour last issue. Notable among them have been adaring raid on Kiel, the capture or destruction of a large part of the French Navy, and the torpedoing of the Arandora Star. The R.A.F. or the Fleet Air Arm played a part in all of them. In addition, the series of heavy British attacks on German bases, communications, and oil stores on the Continent have continued unabated, while each night and most evenings German bombers in varying numbers have crossed our coasts and dropped bombs. In the war against Italy we have continued to score small but heartening successes, and that enemy's great number of U-boats is shrinking at a rate which has not yet quite reached the figure of one a week. A fortnight ago we recorded that the German battleship Scharnhorst, which has a normal displacement of 26,000 tons and a main armament of nine nin. guns besides secondary armament, was bombed by the Fleet Air Arm while in Norway after sinking H.M. aircraft carrier Glorious, and on her way home for repairs was hit by a torpedo fired by a British submarine and was again bombed by the Coastal Command. She was taken to the base at Kiel at the east end of the famous canal and there was placed in a floating dock. But the R.A.F. had not done with her. The Bomber Command took up the work, and on the night of Monday, July 1, a strong force of our bombers made their way to Kiel. Excellent visibility enabled the raiders to trace their route from the mouth of the Eider River right up to the Naval Base at Kiel, which was easily located without the need of assistance from parachute flares. The first aircraft approached the target at a considerable height and then, with engines throttled back, glided down to launch its attack. The first bomb scored a direct hit on the floating dock, about a third of the way along its length, and was quickly followed by others which burst among buildings on the quayside. "Just when we were half-way through our glide," said the pilot of this aircraft, '' the enemy put up a searchlight which swept the sky and, having failed to locate us, went out. We saw our first bomb burst with a terrific explosion on the dock, and almost at the same instant every gun in the district seemed to go into action. The barrage was too hot for us to wait and see what damage we had done, but we did turn round and notice that a fire we had started on the quayside was getting bigger and bigger." The following raiders, coming in to attack in rapid succession, were met with a continuous barrage of fire from pom-pom batteries and guns of heavy calibre. One aircraft, pressing home its attack through a screen of bursting shells, was repeatedly hit. " I expected the tail turret to fall off, but, luckily, it didn't," remarked the rear gunner of this air- craft, whose wireless operator reported that '' the whole of the interior of the fuselage was lit up by the flashes of the shells bursting around him." The aircraft reached its objective and the pilot dropping his bombs on the dock- yard saw a* series of heavy explosions, followed within a few minutes by a huge outbreak of fire, which was still visible when the crew of the crippled raider were 85 miles away on their homeward journey. For nearly an hour the battleship and the dockyard were continuously attacked by successive units of the strong raiding force. Four direct hits on the Scharnhorst and on the dock were claimed by one aircraft; another, gliding down to within 2,000ft. of the dock, dropped three of its heaviest bombs, which burst in a row across the battleship and started fires on the ship and on the edge of the dock. "The A.A. fire came uncomfortably close," said the pilot of this aircraft, "but as we were not hit I made a second run. In the
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