DEADLY AIM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 144, 19 June 1940, Page 9

DEADLY AIM.

NAZI DESTROYER HIT. Several Enemy 'Planes Brought Down. WIDE FIELD OF ACTIVITY. (Received 1.30 p.m.) LOXDOX, June 18. The Air Ministry says the R.A.F. heavily bombed military objectives over a wide area in the Rhineland, Ruhr and north-west Germany last night. Early to-day the R.A.F. bombed and hit a German destroyer off the Frisian Islands.

The destroyer was bombed by a Ijockheed Hudson aircraft, of the Coastal Command, early this morning, says h British official wireless message.

An Air Ministry bulletin says: "The aircraft was engaged on reconnaissance over the North Sea. When near the German island of Xordeney the pilot saw several German destroyers at anchor. He dived on them and let go his bombs. One scored a direct hit amidships on one of the destroyers. Volumes of smoke came from the German vessel.

"The Hudson pilot circled around, examining the result of his attack, and smoke was still issuing from +hi? destroyer when the aircraft turned away and set a course for its base."

An Air Ministry communique states: '•R.A.F. fighters iast night shot down two eiiemy bombers over the north-east coast of France," says a British official wireless message. "Yesterday evening a section of three Spitfires met three Junkers 88's dive bombers between Boulogne and Le Touquet. Each Spitfire pilot took one of the Junkers. One was seen to crash into the sea, another dived to the ground with flames pouring from the starboard motor. The rear guns of the third had already been silenced before the Spitfire pilot made the final attack."

On his way home from northern France in the small hours of this mom%\g an R.A.F. l*enhcim fighter saw a Heinkel 115 seaplane silhouetted, far beneath, ngainst the sea. He dived 9000 feet to attack, and after a ten-mile chase up the coast shot it down in flames.