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Aviation History
1944
1944 - 1626.PDF
140 WAR IN THE AIR Scapa Flow to Trincomallee indicates that the centre of warlike interest is likely to move eastward before long. That Sir Bruce Fraser will be less appreciative of the value of carriers there is no reason to suppose. Several times he has taken out the Home Fleet to the shores of Norway as escort for carriers, whose aircraft were to deliver an attack. He will work under Admiral Mountbatten, who is perhaps our greatest authority on combined operations, and in concert with Admiral Nimitz, who has given numerous proofs that he understands the use of carrier-borne aircraft in his attacks on island after island of Japan's Empire. . Another sign of the times is the return of instalments of refugees from Britain to Gibraltar. The Rock was bombed at times in the early days of the war, and there was considerable excitement at one time when guns on the Spanish irainland were observed to have Gibraltar within easy range. Now all such dangers are past, and it is time for the evacuees to go home. They will probably not feel any acute regrets at saying good-bye to the English summer of 1944. Many British sun-lovers would be only too pleased to go with them. Our only regret is that some few of them fell victims to air torpedoes during the last month of their stay in Southern England. That A'a's a sorry ending to four years of exile from their native Rock. NORMAN PASTORAL Rocket-firing Typhoons and a store of projectiles on a Normandy airfield. July Summary in which consider- IURING July, a month cloudy weather was a 1 handicap to flying operations, the of A.D.G.B. was more varied ^that of any other R.A.F. Com- Those who supposed that the squadrons of A.D.G.B. would do nothing but defend Great Britain were wrong. For one thing, there were no attacks on Great Britain by enemy aircraft during the month. In place of them came the air torpedoes, and dealing with them was the chief occu pation of the fighter squadrons of the Command, together with the A.A. guns and the balloons. No figures have been published of the number of air torpedoes destroyed; but people who live on the routes which these missiles mostly follow are eloquent in their descriptions of the number of noisy crashes which go on round them and also of the terrific clamour of the gun barrage. In addition to this work, A.D.G.B. has joined with the 2nd Tactical Air Force in providing cover by day and MACHINE-MADE WAR : The barrage from semi-automatic guns attacking the completely automatic air torpedoes as they fly over Southern England. night for our troops in Normandy and for supplies being shipped across the Channel. Transport Command has put up the fine record of having evacuated 10,000 casualties since D. Day from France to England, and not one of its aircraft suffered a mishap in the process. Not a single wounded man died on the way while being flown across. During July the Command carried round about 550 tons of raw material, medical sup plies, and food to France, in addition to nearly 1,000 medical and fighting personnel. These are a few salient features of the report for the month. The aggres sive spirit of the R.A.F. is reflected in the tale of casualties of aircraft. In offensive action over Europe (exclud ing the Normandy battlefield), the R.A.F. losses were 221 machines against 51 enemy aircraft destroyed (over Britain the enemy lost three machines, evidently engaged on recon naissance). In Italy the results were more favourable, namely, 475 Allied aircraft lost, against 658 of the Axis. The Middle East, which is now the least active front, lost ten and bagged five. The S.E. Asia Command has an nounced 20 aircraft losses and claimed 12 Japanese machines shot down. The monsoon weather probably had some thing to do with these last figures. The Allies have been doing more fly ing than the Japanese have ventured to do. * One good piece of work done by Allied aircraft in Normandy was to give Marshal Rommel a bad head ache—a literal headache. The British belief was that he was knocked un conscious in an air raid on one of the German headquarters, but we had rather hoped that our bombing of several of these headquarters would have produced more drastic effects
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