THE GERMAN LOSSES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 305, 2 October 1940, Page 5

THE GERMAN LOSSES.

FIGURES FOR LAST MONTH.

FAILURE OF NIGHT BOMBING.

LONDON, September 30. During September, which was regarded by high officials as a critical month, the Royal Air Force destroyed more than 1000 German aircraft with the loss of only 286 of its own fighters. The last month has further demonstrated the inability of enemy bombers, even with huge escorts, to overcome the defence of Royal Air Force planes in daylight raids, and it is regarded bv experts as establishing the ineffectiveness of night bombing because many of the raiding pilots lose their way. An examination of the list of places upon which bombs have been dropped in the last few nights suggest that at least half of them were dropped by pilots who were completely unaware of the localities over which they were flying —places remote from any objocth e which the Germans could claim to have any military or semi-military char- / actor. “In these cases,” states the air correspondent of the “ Daily Telegraph,’ “it is obviously not a question of missing legitimate targets by half a mile or so through inaccurate bomb-laying. Either the enemy has mistaken the route assigned to him, or, knowing that he had lost his way, was bombing promiscuously.”