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Aviation History
1945
1945 - 0787.PDF
APKtL 2OTH, TQ45 FLIGHT WAR Heligoland Bombed: End of the Dim-out : Hitler's Redoubt ? •Japanese Kamikage Pilots IN the first world war a great dealwas heard about Heligoland. Itwas a convenient advanced base for the powerful German High Seas Fleet. The elderly ones among us can remember when it was a British pos- session, and how the great Lord Salis- bury was criticised for giving it back to Germany in exchange for some terri- tory in Africa in 1890. We remember a cartoon in Punch which accused Lord Salisbury of having given it away " with a pound of tea." In the present war little has so far been heard of Heligoland, as the Germans have not possessed a fleet which could challenge the Home Fleet of the Royal Navy to a pitched battle. But as the war neared its close, the R.A.F. last week sent out nearly 1,000 bombers with an escort of Spitfires and Mustangs to raid it. The raid was in all probability an anti-submarine mea- sure. Mr. Forrestal, the Secretary for the U.S. Navy, had remarked only a day or two before, that the submarine threat to the sea connections between Great Britain and the Continent had MATELOTS' MOKE : Daisy, alocal donkey, pulls the dispersals' bus at a Royal Naval Air Stationin Ceylon. become serious. Of course, the Ad- miralty and the H.Q. of Coastal Com- mand were not in ignorance of the situation, and action would no doubt have been taken just the same even if Mr. Forrestal had said nothing. Under the treaty of Versailles the fortifications of Heligoland had been dismantled; but during the present war (or perhaps before) they had been replaced. In addition to the guns, there were shelters for E-boats, R- boats, and U-boats. On the smaller island of Dune, three-quarters of a mile away, there is an airfield. In very clear daylight the bombers set about their job, and kept at it for more than an hour. Great fires were set going, and the operation was carried out without the loss of any of our. aircraft. The attack has been repeated. Another useful piece of work by the R.A.F. was the bombing by Lancas- ters of the railway yards at Cham, east of Nuremberg, through which arms from the Skoda works in Czecho- slovakia were railed to the German front. Again we suffered no loss. The Eighth and Fifth Armies in Italy are now making a great push to BOTTOMS UP : The German battle-ship Admiral Scheer lying upside down in Kiel dockyard after an attack byBomber Command. It looks un- commonly like the Tirpitz looked afterBomber Command had turned her over in a Norwegian fjord.
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