DIRECT HITS SCORED.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 194, 25 May 1940, Page 5

DIRECT HITS SCORED.

COMMUNICATIONS DAMAGED.

BLAZING LORRIES AND CARS.

LONDON, May 23,

Continuously throughout Wednesday and the following night the Royal Air Force was.again most active, bombing enemy concentrations, ■. ammunition dumps, and road and rail communications.

Among the first targets successfully attacked in the afternoon was a column of lorries and armoured fighting vehicles caught on the move. Direct hits on lorries were scored by six Blenheims and bombs were seen to burst on the road over a distance of 600 yards. Another force of Blenheims made individual attacks on, a number of targets. One aircraft scored a direct hit on a group of army lorries, and three more aircraft obtained hits on supply lorries and on several tanks standing in an. adjoining field. Along another road, closely packed columns of lorries and armoured, cars: were seen travelling at about 40 miles an hour, and a successful attack was made on a concentration of from 15 to 20 tanks bunched together just off the main road. Later arrivals in this area found lorries and cars hit by earlier bombing attacks blazing by the roadside.

During the night trains were derailed and set on fire and tracks were demolished. The enemy’s road and rail communications over a wide area were interrupted. The objectives attacked included railway junctions, marshalling yards, troop convoys; ancl road and rail "bridges in many parts of north-west Germany, and similar targets in the occupied territory of Belgium immediately behind the battle area. At Geldern, a German town near the' Dutch frontier, four heavy bombs from a Hampden aircraft scored djrect hits on an ammunition train, which immeately blew up. The crew of another Hampden flying above the main railway line 10 miles east of Liege, sighted, two supply trains standing still. Describing this attack, the pilot of the bomber said “Our first bomb landed on the right bank of the line. The second was a direct hit on a rear truck, and the third landed on the left embankment. I their decided to drop two bombs together. Both went crashing through the centre of the train, and there was a terrific blast of smoke and flame. We saw wreckage lying all over the place.”

Another aircraft dropped a heavy bomb which exploded on the main runway of The Hague aerodrome. Direct hits were recorded on the Namur-Gem-bloux main road, and on roads and railways north of Huv. Crossroads at Gembloux and an adjoining railway track were hit. The railway line at Yvoir was straddled by a salvo of heavy bombs, and the main line track at Binclie was seen to be badly damaged after a number of hits on a road bridge across the line and on a siding running beside it.

An important railway crossing and road bridge at Givet were damaged. Five direct bits were scored on the railway marshalling yards. The searchlights there wei\? successfully attacked by machine-gun fire. Farther south enemy mechanised columns were successfully attacked.

The D.F.C. has boon awarded to five men of the Royal Air Force, and. the D.F.M. to seven. Of the 12 awards, five went to one squadron and_four to another.

Flight Lieutenant W. Crumpton received his D.F.C. for a daring attack on a German mechanised column northeast of Luxemburg. In spite of the heavy fire directed at him, he wont down and dropped three bombs on the column from a height of only 100 feet. His machine began to lose petrol, and shortly afterwards his engine failed, but he managed to land safely in Belgium.