DESTROYER'S END

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 211, 6 September 1941, Page 1 (Supplement)

DESTROYER'S END

AIR TORPEDO ATTACK British Bomber Also Scores Hit on Ship British Official Wireless. Rec. 5.30 p.m. RUGBY, Sept 5. Among telling blows delivered on the enemy in Sicily and North Africa by the Fleet Air Arm on the nighi of September 3-4 was the blowing up of a destroyer off Tripoli, announced earlier in the Middle East communique. How this was done has bees? related by the pilot, who said, "I was looking for a tanker. Although it was as bright as daylight I could see no sign of the principal objectives. After looking round for threequarters of an hour I thought wo might have a crack at a destroyer, although they are so short that thev are difficult to hit. There were two destroyers and they could see us O.K. We let go from a short range, but the torpedo seems to take a lonp time and I had got back to my ship when it blew up.**

The pilot of another aircraft m the air at the same time, who saw th<destroyer, did a good piece of work on his own account. The pilot sighted an enemy vessel outside tho harbour and dropped two heavy bombs on it. At least one, but proi ably both, found their mark.