REPEATEDLY HIT

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 75, 29 March 1940, Page 8

REPEATEDLY HIT

ENEMY PLANE

ENCOUNTER OVER NORTH

SEA

(British < Official Wireless.) (Received March 29,' 1.15 p.m.') * RUGBY, March 28. The Air Ministry announces that a machine of the Coastal Command, while,on patrol over the North Sea today, encountered two enemy aircraft. During a prolonged engagement one of the enemy aircraft was repeatedly hit and seen to be considerably damaged, and it is considered unlikely that it reached its base. The British plane returned safely. (Received March 29, 2.10 p.m.) LONDON, March 28. Behind the attack of the Coastal Command plane on Dorniers over the North Sea lies the -story of a bitter half-hour's fight and a hazardous ■ return to its base by the German machine with its pbrt engine out of action, its tanks riddled, and its petrol streaming away.The British plane swooped on the two Dorniers 160 miles from land, its guns spitting. The pilot said: "We concentrated on the' hindmost Dornier, the' rear gunner of which climbed to the gunpit. He was a young fellow. We opened up and got him, and he fell forward over the edge. We swooped down several times and smoke- poured out from the Dornier.. There is much doubt whether it got home. They riddled us with bullets."