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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 2275.PDF
andAIRCRAFT ENGINEER FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEEKLY IN THE WORLD .- FOUNDED WO9 Editor C. M. POULSEN Managing Editor G. GEOFFREY SMITH Chief Photographer JOHN YOXALL Editorial, Advertising and Publishing Offices: DORSET HOUSE, STAMFORD STREET, LONDON, S.E.1 8-10, CORPORATION ST., COVENTRY. Telegrams : Autocar Coventry Telephone: Coventry 5210. SUBSCRIPTION RATES : Telegrams : Truditur, Sedist, London. GUILDHALL BUILDINGS, NAVIGATION ST., BIRMINGHAM, 2. Telegrams : Autopress, Birmingham. Telephone : Midland 2971 (5 lines). Home and Abroad : Year, Cl 8 0. Telephone: Waterloo 3333 (35 lines). 260, DEANSGATE, 26B, RENFIELD ST., MANCHESTER, 3. GLASGOW, C.2. Telegrams : Iliffe, Manchester. Telegrams : Iliffe, Glasgow. Telephone : Blackfriars 4412. " Telephone : Central 4857. 6 months, £1 4 0. 3 months, 12s. Od. Registered at the G.P.O. as a Newspaper. No. 1651. Vol. XXXVIII. AUGUST 15, 1940 Thursdays, Price 9d. The Outlooks Bravo the Fighter Command!T WICE in four days has the Luftwaffe used some measure ef its numerical strength in attacks on our shipping and our coasts, and on each occa- sion it has lost sixty or more machines in a day. Our losses in fighter machines brought down were 19 and 26, but some of these were only losses of machines, for the pilots survived and will doubtless fight again. More striking demonstrations of R.A.F. superiority in combat could hardly be desired. In particular we are filled with admiration for the calculated courage with which our pilots have always attacked, whatever the odds against them. They have fought with the object of defending their country, if possible of preventing the enemy from dropping bombs on his objective, but at any rate of inflicting such losses upon him that he will be dis- couraged, and if he.comes again will come with less determination. With these objects in view our men have never considered the risk of losses to themselves; but such is their skill, so excellent the training which they have received, and so splendid the qualities of the machines which they fly, that their own losses have not been much more than a third of what the enemy has suffered. v The German TacticsG ERMAN tactics are significant. During the evacuation of the B.E.F. from France their bombers appeared in numbers, but failed to achieve their object of preventing the evacuation. Then from June 18 to August 4 they adopted a policy of sporadic bombing, mostly by single bombers at night, over various parts of Great Britain. These tactics gave little chance to our defences to score heavily, though oil the other hand they did not, and were not likely to, cause us much damage. In a month the bombs killed ' 336 civilians and seriously injured 476 others, figures which are less than a normal month's casualties on our roads. • •. " .: Then on Thursday, August 8, there came a change- when a mass attack was made on a convoy in the Channel. The Germans naturally want to use their pos- session of the French coast to stop us from steaming up and down the Channel. So they came by day. It is, we believe, a German doctrine that night bombing is too uncertain to obtain results of military importance. On that pleasant summer day the Germans sent some 400 machines against the convoy and lost 60 of them. Of this total 24 were bombers and the other 36 were escort- ing fighters. Their gains were two small steamers (of not much more than 1,000 tons each) sunk by bombs and seven others damaged but brought into harbour, besides the 19 R.A.F. fighter machines shot down. That result can hardly seem good business to the German High Command. The Second EffortD ESPITE the resounding failure of that Thursday effort, another display of force was made by the Luftwaffe on Sunday, August 11. There were two attacks that day, one on Dover harbour and the other on Portland and Weymouth. The first succeeded in setting one barrage balloon on fire; the other resulted in minor damage to two warships from splinters, the setting on fire of an oil tank (the fire was quickly put out), and a good deal of damage to house property. There were very few civilian casualties. In these two fights, as well as in some isolated raiding elsewhere, the Germans lost 61 machines in the day, while we lost 26 fighters. The A. A. guns brought down a proportion of the raiders, and deserve fj|ll credit for that, but they played an even more useful-^part in driving some of the German formations off by the accuracy of their fire.
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