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Aviation History
1941
1941 - 1889.PDF
AUGUST 2IST, 1941. FLIGHT In the Air R.A.F.'s Daylight Raiding ; Danube Bridge Destroyed : Air Torpedoes Again DAWN ATTACK : A German supply ship after being hit by a bomb from a Beaufort. PLANNING a large-scale bombingattack involves a tremendousamount of accurate staff work. Air exercises in peacetime, and suchevents as the great review at Milden- hall held by the late King George Vgave the various air staffs good prac- tice in congregating squadrons andwings from various quarters, and bringing them over a given point at theright moment. The Hendon Displays were also good practice. When twoCommands, Bomber and Fighter, have each to provide their quota, thestaff work grows in complication. In 1939 and 1940 comparativelylittle work of that sort had to be undertaken by the R.A.F. TheBomber Command was mainly con- cerned with night-bombing, while inthe summer of 1940 the Fighter Com- mand had to solve its own problemsin dealing with daylight attacks by the Luftwaffe. Combined daylightraids are a development of the present summer. The strength of the AirForce has grown and is growing, and the scale of its daylight operations isaccordingly increasing. Last week there was a very complicated seriesof operations in one day, followed by a series of night raids. Early in themorning six squadrons of Blenheims set out for Cologne to attack powerstations, and they were escorted as far as Antwerp by two-enginedWhirlwind fighters. Then the bombers went on alone over Holland, adoptingthe tactics of flying very low. When fast machines fly low, the A.A. gun-ners can hardly swing their sights on to them before the bombers havepassed. The bombs were also dropped from a low altitude, and the crewssaid that it was impossible to miss the power stations. Over the targetsthe flak was intense, and one Blen- heim, after dropping its load, wentdown into a quarry to escape from it, and for a while was flying about 30ft.below the level of the ground. Later the same machine chipped thetip of an airscrew blade against the top of a telegraph pole, and finallycaught the tip of a wing in the top of a tree. On the return journeylong-range Spitfires, not before men- tioned in any official communique^flew out to meet the Blenheims at Ant^verp, drove off some Germanfighters, and escorted the bombeis home again. The Blenheims confessed that they were very glad to see theSpitfires. On the same day there were raidsby Fortresses over Germany and Hol- land, while Hampdens with a strongescort of fighters flew right into the Pas de Calais. The Fortresses flewso high that the crew of one saw German fighter trails thousands offeet below them as the defenders searched for the raiders. It was animpressive demonstration of the Air Force's ability to do what theLuftwaffe failed to do last summer, namely, to raid by daylight with-out suffering excessive casualties in machines. The following night theBomber Command showed that its resources had not been exhausted bysending machines over Berlin and other places in Germany. It seemsclear that everything went like clock- work, and the various air staffs con-cerned deserve high credit for their work. That the air crews deservepraise goes without saying. The position in Russia may bechanged from what it is at the moment of writing by the time these words areprinted. It may be possible to deal with developments in stop-press style.
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