R.A.F. AUDACITY

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 132, 1 December 1939, Page 8

R.A.F. AUDACITY

THE RAID ON BORKUM

HISTORIC ATTACK

GERMANS CAUGHT UNAWARES

(British Official Wireless.) (Received December 1, 10.30 a.m.)

RUGBY, November 30.

The raid on Tuesday on the base at Borkum by the Royal Air Force command is declared by reports to have been one of the most audacious raids in the history of war flying. A German communique, which ungrudgingly described the raid as a daring exploit, admits that it caught them unawares.

The full story of the raid is now being pieced together. It does not bear out the German claim that no damage was done. On the contrary, the results of the "strafing" were: — Five German seaplanes machinegunned, two of them believed seriously damaged; three out of four machine-gun posts on the Borkum mole probably put out of action; German coastal patrol boats riddled with bullets; and valuable information of the enemy's fortifications collected.

The fighter patrol which carried out the raid landed safely in darkness on a home aerodrome. They returned, as they went, a complete squadron of twelve twin-engined fighters piloted by six Royal Air Force regulars and six members of the auxiliary Air Force. Not one of them or any other members of tlie crews had been under gunfire before. They covered 500 miles in carrying out a highly-successful attack on a fortified seaplane base, and in spite of intense anti-aircraft fire, no member of the crews—36 men—sustained a scratch and not a single aircraft bore any trace of the gunfire to which it had been subjected. GERMANS IN PANDEMONIUM. The patrol was sent out to reconnoitre the German base and to attack any seaplanes in the air or at their base. It emerged from cloud after flying through a rainstorm a, short distance from its targets. Before the main attack the pilots spotted five seaplanes on the slipways, together with coastal patrol boats. The patrol was flying in four sections of three aircraft each, and immediately dived for various objectives, spraying machine-gun bullets from heights of sometimes well below 100 feet. One of the fighters skimmed through a gap in the mole. The Germans were taken completely by surprise. The fighter crews could see men running in all directions, while some gunners occupying a post on top of a hangar fell to the ground. For j a while there was pandemonium. Then the anti-aircraft guns and coastal patrol boats got into action, but the standard of firing was not very high. Undisturbed by the enemy's pompoms and machine-guns, the British fighters pressed home their low-flying attacks. As one member* of the crew said afterwards, "The Germans probably never thought they would have to hit anything so low in the air."

Their task over, the fighters reformed and flew back to England, 200 miles of the journey being covered in darkness. They were not intercepted by German aircraft during any period of the flight.