Wide R. A. F. Activity

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 239, 4 July 1940, Page 9

Wide R. A. F. Activity

SCHARNHORST HIT IN REPAIR DOCK

Fourth Attack Made On Battleship (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, July 2. The Air Ministry announced that Royal Air Force bombers last night attacked the enemy naval base at Kiel and scored many It is revealed that in the course of the raid the German battleship Scharnhorst (26,000 tons) was heavily bombed when the aircraft, taking the enemy completely by surprise, penetrated the powerful defences of the Kiel Canal and attacked the ship as it lay in a floating dock of the naval base. • j r r The Scharnhorst was undergoing repairs necessitated by earlier British action. On April 11, during the invasion of Norway, she was engaged by H.M.S. Renown and damaged by shellfire On June 13 she was hit by at least one heavy bomb in an attack by Fleet Air Arm planes, and on June 22 it was official y announced in London that, when she was strongly escorted and clearly on a passage from Trondheim Fiord to a safe port where she could repair the damage” from this attack, the Scharnhorst received again considerable damage through, a direct torpedo hit from a British submarine and an hour later through direct hits by three heavy aerial ° m Last night a large number of bombs burst squarely on the battleship and heavy and extensive damage was done to the dock and other parts of the nayal base. Simultaneously attacks were being made by other bombers over enemy territory, and it is announced that from all the operations four British aircraft have failed to return. Early this morning Coastal Command and naval bombers attacked objectives near Rotterdam.