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Aviation History
1941
1941 - 1107.PDF
MAY 15TH, 1941. J 343 (Continued) Music Hath Charms : Aircraftmen ofthe R.A.F. indulge in a little com- munity singing on landing after theevacuation from Greece. as damaging many others. This squadron accounted for more than 100 Italian and German aircraft before leaving Greece. February 28 was their greatest day. A small formation en- countered successive enemy forma- tions, and in an hour a drawn-out battle stretched the whole length of Albania. Twenty-eight enemy aircraft were shot down. Towards the end of the Greek campaign the squadron took part in a great air battle over Athens and shot down 20 German aircraft. At the finish of six months' arduous fighting, bombers of the K.A.F. in Greece had carried out more than 300 raids and nearly 300 aircraft had been confirmed as destroyed in the air, as well as a huge total of aircraft damaged both in the air and on the ground. With the failure of the great Italian offensive launched in March and the Italian air force beaten to the ground, Germany came to her partner's rescue. It was not until our forces were evacuating that our pilots saw aircraft . in the air again. With Jugoslavia unable to withstand the German onslaught, our bombers and the big Sunderland flying boats had another job to do—rescue of important person- .. ages from Jugoslavia, including King Peter. . . - . .' ; Aerodromes Lost YX/rHEN the Army Commanders decided upon withdrawal to a new line, the R.A.F. suffered the most severe blow of the campaign. They were forced back to two or three bases , • only and the odd, temporary landing ; grounds they had used at the com- jpement of the campaign. All new aerodromes which had been built were lost, or were too close to the enemy lines to be used. The R.A.F. carried on, although the enemy hammered our few remaining bases continuously. It then became impossible to obtain re- placement of aircraft. Those that did arrive were shot up on the ground. Nevertheless, aircraft, even though officially " unserviceable," took off all ENEMY AIR OverG.B. M»v 4 105 ., 6 M 7 ", 8 9 .. 10 Tot*! In 10 13 27 26 5 33 1*4 LOSSES TO Over Europe 1 3 2 1 4 11 Northern Are; : 4.581 about 1,503 MAY 10th Middle East (Incl. Iraq) 5 6 1 5 14 Si Middle East: the time and inflicted great damage to the enemy forces. 33 in One Night the night of May ioth-nth, when the moon was at its zenith and there was not a cloud to be seen in the sky, a particularly savage raid was made on London. Casualties were high and a number of famous buildings, including the Houses of Parliament, Westmin- ster Abbey, Westminster Hall and the British Museum, were severely dam- aged. In these conditions of utmost clarity our night fighters and ground defences excelled themselves. No fewer than 33 German bombers were destroyed during the raid, and of these 29 met their end at the hands of the night fighters. This brought the bag for the first ten days of May up to 124 ; thirty-three more than for the whole of the previous month, which was it- self a record. From a battle such as this, where the onlooker could sense a tremendous spiritual resistance to stark terrorism, the fighter pilots had tales of wonder to relate. One victorious fighter pilot re- ported: "As my bullets struck home the Heinkel was hidden in a shower of red sparks. I attacked again, a large explosion occurred inside the raider's fuselage and he went straight down." This pilot has on four occasions destroyed two raiders in a night. The pilot of a two-seater fighter which destroyed a Heinkel m over London reported : '' After our second attack the bomber caught fire and made a spiral descent. Then a search- light caught us both and we saw two of the Heinkel's crew bale out." Another pilot who chased a raider back across the Channel shot it down off the French coast and afterwards saw distress signals from a dinghy which the German crew had launched. Our offensive operations for the night included a particularly heavy raid on the docks and submarine build- ing yards at Hamburg, with various targets at Bremen, Emden, Rotterdam and Berlin as secondary objectives. The raid on Hamburg was a full- scale attack and even the German communique admitted that numerous fires and much damage was caused. Gun Turret Work! 'TTHE enemy defences were also busy •*• and numerous air encounters took place in the brilliant moonlight. It is on such occasions that our policy of iitting power-operated gun turrets comes into its own, for although our bomber force numbered several hun- dreds, we lost only seven and it is cer- tain that at least four of the enemy night fighters were destroyed. In addi- tion to these operations, which were all carried out by Bomber Command, air- craft of the Coastal Command made their usual sweeps down enemy occu- pied coasts looking for supply vessels and other enemy craft. Bombers from the same command also attacked the oil stores and docks at La Pallice in the Bay of Biscay. The Coastal Com- mand operations were without ioss. The week has seen a considerable increase in daylight activity by the Luftwaffe over this country. BRITISH AIR LOSSES TO MAY 10th OverGB Oyer EuroPe Middl« Ea>t uver u.o. aBd the Jea ^!ne, |raqj Aircraft Pilots Aircraft Aircraft May 4 — — 2 3 II 3 7 u Tot=l in Northern Area : 1.944.about 205. 13 Middle East:
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