FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1942
1942 - 2297.PDF
NOVEMBER 5TH, 1942 FLIGHT Wffr/ff The Desert Battle : Fighting Round the Solomons : Aleutian Submarine Base Bombed : The Alaskan Highway ICELANDIC WHITLEY White-bellied Whitleys at a Coastal Command station in Iceland, found to be excellent camouflage against clouds. The white paint has been GENERAL F. HALDER, Chief of the German General Staff, has been dismissed by Hitler. He is reported to have been of the opinion that the greatest peril which now threatens Germany comes from North Africa. In that he agrees with plenty of other authorities, though it is doubtful whether Hitler shares the view. Let us all hope that General Haider is right. Accounts of the early stages of General Montgomery's advance are chiefly a chorus of praise for the grand assistance which the air arm gave to the ground forces. Every form of operation of which aircraft are capable has been practised. Some squadrons have been playing the part of field artillery, bombing targets on or just behind the battlefield which the guns would have shelled if they could have reached them ; others have been acting "as long-range artillery, damaging the enemy forward airfields (if the word "field" can appropriately be used of the desert), and especially the fighter grounds at Daba and Fuka ; others, again, have been piling bombs into the harbours of Mersa Matruh, Tobruk and those farther back ; while Tighter squadrons have divided their energies between keeping the ring overhead and strafing such ground targets as were likely to respond to the arrival of a 20-mm. shell in their interiors. Several times the enemy began to mass troops of one sort or another for counter-attacks, only to have to scatter again" when the British squadrons began to blast them with bombs. Of course, all this account of air activity does not mean that the ground forces were inactive. The infantry were mainly responsible for the first stages of the British advance, while the ground artillery kept up a bom bardment the like of which had never before been known in Northern Africa. The Navy also has bom barded Axis ports from the sea. The struggle is likely to be a lengthy one, and we shall revert to its progress later on. Stories are getting about concerning the panic in Genoa during the R.A.F. bombing raids on the place, and one of them, which came through a German- controlled radio, sug gested, if it did not actually aver, that over 350 people were crushed to death in the mad rush for shelters. Many, perhaps most, Italians feel very little enthusiasm for the war, and they must feel deeply aggrieved at being bombed for the crimes of their rulers. Innocen' Ethiopians had to suffer horribly during Mussolini's invasion of Abyssinia, and the whirligig of time is now bringing its revenge. BEAU'S NOSE : A close-up of the cock pit of a Beaufighter in the Western Desert. The Americans have announced that the Japanese had established a sub marine base at Kiska, in the Aleutians, and their heavy bombers have been attacking it several times. One day Liberators went there with an escort of Lightning fighters, and next day Fortresses followed on without any escort, trusting to their own fire power to keep off Japanese fighters. As a matter of fact, no enemy fighters tried to dispute the air with the Americans, though there was a good deal of A.A. fire from the ground. Down in the South-West, a confused
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
