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Aviation History
1941
1941 - 1579.PDF
JULY 17TH, 1941. FLIGHT War in The Air Enemy Heavily Bombed : Night-fighting Successes : Eleven Days in a Dinghy EVERYDAY HEROISM : A Fighter Command pilot making a " wheels up " landing on his Spitfire V after being badly shotabout during a daylight sweep over France. The pilot, who has the D.F.C., was wounded in two places. WHETHER it will give directhelp to the Russians or not,the R.A.F. has been increas- ing the weight of its attacks on Ger- many and occupied territory ever since the German armies invaded the Soviet territories. Some German towns have barely thought about pulling them- selves together after a night attack when the Bomber Command has sent over day-raiders, mostly Blenheims, with strong fighter escorts. Great pains are taken to see that the British fighters are in superior numbers as compared with any defensive fighters which they are likely to meet, and they have given splendid protection to the Blenheims while the latter have gone in to take sure aim at clearly seen targets. Losses have been suffered by the R.A.F., but though they are the attacking side they have shot down more of the enemy than the Messer- schmitts have been able to shoot down of them. When the fighting has taken place over the Channel some British pilots have been picked up after jump- ing with their parachutes. It may well be that more of the pilots whom we miss have got safely to earth and.been made prisoners of war. That is one penalty of fighting over enemy terri- tory. Another disadvantage is that a good many enemy machines may only be counted as "probables," whereas if they had fallen on British soil they would have been certainties. So, on two grounds, the real advantage of the R.A.F. is probably greater than the official reports are able to show. R.A.F. Night Fighters /^NLY occasionally has the Luft- ^-s waffe attempted to strike back. Southampton had a bad raid one night, and on other nights there have been light scattered raids. British night fighters have been helped by the fine nights and bright moon, and even when there have been few German machines overhead, our men have made gratifying bags, A raider destroyed one night was shot down by a Hurricane night- fighter pilot who chased it nearly backto France. The pilot told his story on landing just one hour after firstpicking up the German. "The Hun must have seen me first," he said,'' and was in such a hurry to get away that he only just missed some barrageballoons. He dodged in one direction after another and then started offsouth, going the fastest I have ever seen a Ju travel. It was hell for leatherfor a time before I finally caught him. It was a glorious night and I was ableto recognise him even better because of the gun flashes coming from theshore. I hit him with my first burst and was almost blinded by flamesfrom the blast. He ducked imme- diately and went down to just over1,000 feet but I got uuder him and slapped him well and truly in the bellywith an eight-seconds burst. He was in a bad way but, to my amazement,my next attack with a three-seconds burst which hit him right in the fuse-lage did not seem to take any effect. For about a minute-nothing happened,
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