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Aviation History
1941
1941 - 0069.PDF
JANUARY 9TH, 1941. i WAR IN THE AIR (Continued) ..people, and the gallantry and continuing success of her forces, give us every confidence in decisive victory. We salute you and all your countrymen." For some time past there has been speculation as to whether Hitler would send help to Mussolini, and, if so, what. It has now been announced from Rome that a detachment of the Luftwaffe, of unspecified strength, is to be placed at the disposal of the Regia Aeronautica. The Italian official news agency issued the following statement: On the occasion of the arrival in Italy of some sections of the German Air Force, the Chief of the Italian Air Staff, General Pricolo, has published an Order of the Day stating that a German air contingent will take part in the air and naval struggle in the Mediterranean where the enemy is concentrating his forces. The contingent is to be con- .sidered as a large Italian unit. The common struggle will consecrate the brotherhood in arms between Italy and Germany." At the same time the Italian contingent which has been in Northern France and has ocasionally made raids on Britain, much to its own discomfort, is being withdrawn to Italy, leaving only a " token " body in France. Doubt- less the returning Italian airmen will have some inspiring stories to tell their compatriots about Spitfires and Hurri- canes. A Heavy Raid on Bremen A PARTICULARLY heavy R.A.F. raid on Bremen tookplace on the night of Wednesday, January i. It lasted about 2^ hours, and was directed mainly against ship- building, dockyards and the railway stations. An hour or so after it had begun, and while the long procession of air- craft of the Bomber Command was still moving towards the city, the pilots could see a red glow in the sky when they reached the Zuyder Zee. They were still 120 miles from their objective, and as they covered this last lap the red glow resolved itself into a raging furnace. Twenty thousand incendiaries and a load of high-explo- sive bombs were dropped on the greatest seaport in Ger- many after Hamburg. The smoke rose to the height of the clouds and so mingled with them. Some pilots found the particular ob- jective which they had been detailed to attack so thoroughly ablaze that rather than waste their bombs upon buildings already gutted they sought other factories or dockyards in the city. It was an early raid beginning about an hour after night- fall, and, although overwhelming in its effect, it was over before midnight. On the way out some of our bombers d to fly through thick cloud and snowstorm, but over many the clouds were driven so quickly by the wind uiat no target was hidden for long, and for all practical purposes it was a clear night, intensely cold (at io,oooft. '• the thermometer measured minus 22 deg. F.) and with a young moon to light up the city. The chief objectives of the night were the great ship- building yards in which warships of all kinds, and especi- ally submarines, are under construction, the Deutsche Vacuum Oil Refinery, railway communications, ware- houses beside the harbours, the Gebriider Nielson rice and starch mills, the Focke-Wulf airframe factory, and many _; other industrial targets. It was the rice and starch mills which some pilots found burning so fiercely throughout the whole structure that they judged it unnecessary to ravage what was already ruined. The pilots who attacked these mills reported that eight large fires broke out, and eventually they came together in one great conflagration which they could still see when they crossed the Dutch frontier on the way home. At several shipbuilding yards both docks and buildings were repeatedly hit by heavy high-explosive bombs, and when 1 thousands of incendiaries fell on two of these yards nothing •.. could be seen but a sheet of flame so brilliant and of such uniform intensity that the bursts of high-explosive bombs could not be distinguished among the flames. ALONGSIDE : Bombs dropping on or near Italian supplyships in Valona Harbour. The two pictures were taken within a few minutes of each other, the top picture showsthe target before bombing. Viona, as the Albanians call it, is only 70 miles from Brindisi. The Atlas shipbuilding yards were ablaze and a whole line of large warehouses beside No. 2 Harbour was alight. The Focke-Wulf airframe factory was on fire when one pilot arrived over it. His bombs splashed into the blaze, and very soon afterwards there were six explosions which could not possibly be mistaken for the actual bursts of the bombs. The Deutsche Vacuum Oil refinery was badly damaged, and the railways at Bremen were hit again and again, factories beside one railway line were gutted, and many pilots could see the wreckage of them. It was very complete. In one of the official reports of this raid, after many dry particulars, come the words " Much greater than Mann- heim." To defend Bremen the Germans used all the ground de- fences they could muster, and our pilots reported a formid- able barrage of anti-aircraft fire. On the way back from this brilliant offensive operation one of our bombers had the good fortune to meet an enemy bomber off the English coast. This was a Junkers 88 which was coming up from astern. It opened fire at a range of 800 yards. The rear gunner of our bomber replied with a short burst and the enemy then banked into a cloud, but just before the aircraft entered it the rear gunner fired another burst. Two minutes later our bomber was out of
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