NARROW ESCAPES FROM SPLINTERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 10, 12 January 1940, Page 7

NARROW ESCAPES FROM SPLINTERS.

' TYNESIDE RAID.

Woman's Glasses Knocked Off By Shell Fragment.

198 WINDOW BROKEN.

Vetoed Mi l—ea«ma. Oupfflilt

(Bcedftd 11 1.K.)

LONDON, January 11.

The Air 'Ministry announces that enemy 'planes crossed the coast near Newcastle shortly after 10 a.m. No bombs were dropped. Fighter patrols and anti-aircraft guns drove the enemy seawards. Shell splinters slightly damaged a house.

It «m the flrai air raid on Tyneside. Report* state that three Nazis participated. Soma residents narrowly escaped falling shrapnel, which smashed the glasses from a woman's face and broke an omnibus window.

Bomber Satpriaefi By Spitfire.

Three Viekere Supermarino Spitfire lighting 'planes surprised a Heinkel bomber attacking threo British cargo ships off the Norfolk Coast. The bomber dropped * salvo from 00ft, but all the missiles missed.

It then fled eastwards, being pursued by the Spitfires for 40 miles. The K.A.F. pilots last saw the Heinkel with the port engine disabled and smoke pouring from her port wing.

Captain Copper, of the Grimsby trawler Chrysolite, brought his vessel into port after an attack by German aircraft. He described how two heavy bombers circled the ship, machinegunning it, from a height of only Wft, from stem to stern. The crew took to the boats, and one of the r aiders returned, dropped bombs and maciunogunned the boats.

As the vessel did not sink the crew Went on board again. She was shaken and leaking. The crew watched four other German aircraft bombing and machine-gunning ships near by. Nono was armed and they were not convoy.