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Aviation History
1941
1941 - 1640.PDF
FLIGHT JULY 24TH, 1941. 24-HOUR OFFENSIVE : Night. Firesburning in Miinster after a heavy attack by our night bombers. Thelocation of each fire is at the com- mencement of each white streak, (i)South-west corner of Munster aerodrome. (2) Bomb flares west of the aerodrome. (3) Large fires north-east of the aerodrome and (4) more fires east of the 'drome. ister told us the other day, they kept enough in France to have enabled them to have indulged in another " blitz" against Great Britain. Prob- ably it could not have been a "blitz " on the heaviest scale. But they are losing numbers of bombers in Russia, and that will probably affect their power of striking hard at Britain, Their training schools must be fairly hard put to it to keep up the supply of air crews. Not much has been heard, at least not much which can be accepted as authentic, about the use of Russian parachute troops. Russia was the first Power to experiment with this form oi troops. But there has probably been little opportunity in the present cam paign for their effective employment. They are of more use in attack than in defence, and they need speedy sup- port by ground formations if they are not to be quickly wiped out. As Russia is fighting on the defensive, that support would seldom be forth- coming, and so it has been wiser to keep the parachutists for a more favourable opportunity. Isolating Tripolilania 'T'HE signing of the armistice in Syria •*• will have put General Auchinleck in a much stronger position in Egypt than he has been since he took over th;: command from General Wavell. While the main German forces are en- gaged against Russia, the contingent in Libya has kept quiet, even as the Luftwaffe in Northern Europe has also been fairly dormant. The idea may be that success in Russia will open a new route to Egypt, and, when that is available, then will be the time to use the pincers tactics. The Germans at Benghazi and Tripoli may have had orders to wait till things are ready. At the same time, it seems highly probable that those same Germans must be troubled by difficulties of WAR IN THE AIR supply. Of late almost every day the communiques from the R.A.F. in the Middle East and the Naval Com- mander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean have told of successful attacks by our aircraft and our submarines on supply ships heading from Sicily for Libya, and on the ports occupied by the enemy. A recent bombing attack on Naples must have been aimed at this line of communication. Operations in the desert, in which the Germans have far less experience than our own men, call for great care of engines and vehicles, and frequent replacement of parts. To keep the Germans and their Italian satellites fighting in Libya must mean a steady stream of supply ships reaching the Libyan ports. Of late very considerable numbers of these ships have not arrived. Palermo, on the northern coast of Sicily, is-one port from which these supply ships set sail (to use the time-honoured expression); and a raid on its harbour was briefly mentioned in our last issue. The full story of the raid has since been told by pilots who took part in it. At least three enemy ships—one of 10,000 tons —were sunk by our bombs and another 10,000-tonner was set on fire. The Palermo Raid HTHE leader of the R.A.F. formation -*- said: "It was a clear sunny after- noon when we left our base to carry out the attack on Italian ships in Palermo. We flew in formation on our way to . the target, sometimes coming down to only a few feet over the deep blue Mediterranean water. We made our landfall off Sicily exactly as the doctor ordered and crossed the Sicilian coast with the mountains towering in the 24-HOUR OFFENSIVE : Day. Bombs bursting on the Potez aircraft works atMeaulte, near Albert, (i) Bursts on the north end of Meaulte. (2) Machine gun shops and stores. (3) and (4) Bombs bursting on main assembly hangars and offices.
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