GERMANY’S AIR LOSSES

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23088, 2 August 1940, Page 9

GERMANY’S AIR LOSSES

TOTAL OF AT LEAST 240 MACHINES (Received August 1, 8 p.m.) LONDON, August 1. An Air Ministry communique, naming the loss of German aircraft dur* m July as « least «.««•* many more enemy fiave bCen put out of action in the aif and m the ground, but the figure given take# account only of those which are Confirmed as having been destroyed. The figure given indicated that 600 and men had been killed or taken piisoimr. spokesman claimed that S Lltoysd l.«m ton. aeroplanes destroyed 334,000 tons. The German Air Force had brought down 370 British aeroplanes. _ Forty British fighters engaged Gerfirst intercepted MesserschmittS and bombers, after which stronger British fortes arrived. One German aeroplane is reported to have been destroyed, battle moved eastward as> the raiders fled. However, seVeral Germans got through and dropped bombs inland. The Air Ministry reported that fehemy aircraft bombed the s6Utti-eart and south-west of England and South wales during Tuesday night, Little damage was done, .and there were no casualties. A German aeroplane over the southeast area dropped four bombs near houses, setting one on fire and damaging Olliers.' Two people Were taken to hospital. The inhabitants of a south-west town went into their shelters three times during Tuesday night, British fighter* W No bombs were dropped when waves of bombers attempted to penetrate inland across the Welsh coast. The formations were broken ,Up , and the bombs fell into the sea and near a lifeboat station. There were no casualties. . "Royal Air Force bombers .carried out daylight attacks throughout Tuesday on military objectives in northern France and Holland," states an Air Ministry communique. “Damage Wfis done to Sidings at Ostend, to dispersed aircraft on the Qiierqueville aerodrome, near Cherbourg, and to hangars and other aircraft at Stingelbert and Boulogne. In reconnaissance and escort duties Coastal Command aircraft attacked gun emplacements on the Norwegian coast and a supply ship oil HaugesUnd, north of Stavanger, The Emden naval base was also attacked. One of our aircraft is missing. “Night operations were curtailed because of bad Weather, but attacks were made on oil refineries at Horaburg, in the Ruhr, and at Monheim, near Dusseldorf, oft a goods yard in Soest, and aerodromes at Duisburg, Antwerp and Courtrai. No aircraft were lost on these night operations. ’’ Among the wide variety of targets attacked by Royal Air Force medium bombers on Tuesday in raids lasting t<> a late hour at night and carried out over a wide area of northern Franca and Holland were aerodromes, storage tanks, locks, and' ships, Over Ostend the pilot of one raider saw 400 railway waggons packed closely together on parallel sidings. He unloaded bombs on the waggons, and as fragments flew high into the air fires broke out in many parts of the railway yards. In an attack on the Flushing aerodrome, one British aircraft was engaged by a number of MessGrschmitt 109 fighters. One of the enemy machmes. caught by a burst of fife from the British rear gunner, was sent diving towards the sea with iittOkft streaming from the wings. The Stilish bomber, although hit in one engine. returned safely. Geheral Von Schroder, president of Germany’s A.R.P, Union, in, an interview admitted that British incendiary bombs had a greater penetrating power than was usually presumed. General von Schrodersaid that he had seen one explosive bomb splinter the size of a fist pass through .a heavy oak door and two walls of a safe. '