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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 2017.PDF
JULY T8 1940 43 WAR IN THE AIR (CONTINUED A Messerschmitt Me 109 single-seater fighter which made a crash landing in South-East England last week. This picture showshow "dirty" the Me 109 is in comparison with the Hurricane and Spitfire. Note particularly the deep troughs for the fuselage guns. the Italians off, but had not the speed to do so. Verywisely, the enemy made no attempt to fight, but turned for their harbour and did the naval equivalent of openingtheir throttles to the full extent. This was not cowardice, but ordinary prudence. None the less, a 15-inch shell fromone of our big ships hit one of the Italian battleships at extreme range, and caused some 100 casualties. The T.S.R.machines of the Fleet Air Arm took up the chase, and successfully planted a torpedo in one of the Italian cruisers.Meantime, the Regia Aeronautica had gone out in some strength to attack our western naval force, and the Italiansclaimed to have sunk the Hood and the Ark Royal. Poor Ark Royal! She is always being sunk by air bombs.Actually the Italian bombs all missed and did damage to neither ships nor men, while the fire from our Fleet shotdown four Italian machines and badly damaged seven others, three of which probably came down in the sea. Though the Italians do not believe that the Mediter-ranean is the proper place for aircraft carriers—and in theory they may be right—the F.A.A. has been very activein the inland sea. Some of its machines have combined with the R.A.F. in attacking Italian warships in the har-bour of Tobruk, Libya, others raided the aerodrome of Catania, in Sicily, and set hangars and workshops on fire,while an attack was made on the harbour of Augusta, Sicily, where a destroyer and the hulk of a store ship weresunk, perhaps by torpedo, though that is not stated. Malta has evidently been taken under the wing of theMiddle East Command, as reports of actions there are now issued from Cairo. Raiding continues, but the fighters onthe island have been increasing the number of their suc- cesses, and the place has not been obliterated, as Italianshad foretold that it would be within a few weeks of their making war. • .-:•..-. :- "Morituri Te Salutamus"! T^URTHER reports have now been received of the greatdog-fight between six Gladiators and nine Italian fighters near Sidi Barrani, on the frontier of Egypt and Libya. TheGladiators went over the enemy aerodrome and deliberately waited for the enemy to take off and prepare to attack.When six were in the air the young Flying Officer leading the first section—a Londoner who has only been in theservice for two years and a half—-gave the signal to attack. . He shot down four of the eaemy himself, three burstinginto flames as they struck the ground, the'-other falling to pieces as it crashed. His flight sergeant got two; the thirdpilot had a long dog-fight L ut eventually saw his opponent diving headlong to earth out of control. In the meanwhilemore enemy fighters had taken off and the other R.A.F. section went into action. The leader sent the nearestItalian down in flames and another of our pilots chased an escaping enemy until he had shot him down. One of our aircraft was damaged but the pilot baled out and landed safely on the Egyptian side of the frontier, where he was picked up by Army units who had been excitedly watching the fighting. Gladiators did good work for the Finns, and they made a heroic but hopeless attempt to establish themselves on a frozen lake in Norway so as to hold off the German bombers. Now at last these fine biplanes have really come into their own. It must be admitted that when it is a case of chasing Junkers 88 bombers our fighters need the greatest possible speed, but in a dog-fight against other fighters speed is of less account, and the wonderful manoeuvrability of the Gladiator biplane is a great advantage. . ... . . - ... ..•••. Determined Bombing "\17HILE the doings of our fighters and the Fleet Air Arm ^' have perhaps attracted most attention during the last week, the implacable work of the Bomber and Coastal Commands has gone on unchecked. In recent reports there have been several mentions of bombing barges in the canals of Holland. It may be that these are hints of preparations for the invasion of Great Britain. There is nothing so useful as killing the wasps in their nests. Kiel and Wilhelmshaven have been bombed again, and places in Norway and Denmark have received attention, as well as the regular targets in Germany. Two warships, either destroyers or light cruisers, were set on fire off Wilhelm- haven by our bombers on Monday, July 8. On the same day a very smart daylight raid was made by Blenheims of the Coastal Command on the Leopold Basin at Ostend, which is now used as a base for German supply ships. Its name made a raid on it a particular pleasure. The raid came as a complete surprise. It lasted only four minutes, but great damage was done to the dock gates, a direct hit was made on a large German supply ship at anchor, and many fires were started. The bombers were flying out to sea again almost before the Nazi defences got into action. A raid on the Sola Aerodrome at Stavanger, where air- craft lined up were attacked by our bombers, was a fierce affair. We lost seven bombers, though we shot down one German fighter. One of the bomber pilots who took part in the raid told the following story: "I arrived over target in company with other flights of aircraft. Owing to intense anti-aircraft fire over target, my flight became detached from the leading flight, and I did not see it again. Each of the three aircraft in my flight dropped its bombs. There was no opportunity to observe the result owing to having to take avoiding action. I saw that the port air- craft of my flight had most of its rudder blown away, pre- sumably by anti-aircraft fire. On leaving the target, the flight was still intact. Saw also three Blenheim aircraft-
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