TROOP-CARRIERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 112, 13 May 1940, Page 9

TROOP-CARRIERS

, GERMAN MACHINES

DESTROYED BY THE R.A.F.

JUNKERS ON BEACH

(British. Official Wireless.) VV RUGBY; May 11. A useful achievement ;by the Home Commands of the R.A.F. on Friday evening was the destruction of nine German troop-carrying aircraft on the coast of Holland. Seven of- these ;were destroyed by long- v range fighters and two by bombs.

The leader of six fighters described how they dived from 5000 feet to 50 feet and riddled the troop-carriers with 18,000 rounds of machine-gun

ammunition.. ( . When the bombers with escorting fighters approached the ■ point where the troop-carriers had been reported, three Messerschmitt 110 fighters were sighted. Below them on the beach, eight miles north of The Hague, they saw nine Junkers 52 troop-carrying aircraft. .After, bombers had hit and set two on fire; the fighters formed a line astern for a ground strafing attack. One' after another they dived vertically from 5000 feet, flattening out over the beach.

"After the bombers had finished," said the flight lieutenant who led the fighters, "we noticed two of the enemy aircraft were on "fire. Down we went . one after another, front guns blazing at the other enemy aircraft. The Germans replied with machine-gune fire from the ground/ The result of our attacks was that out of the seven remaining aircraft we destroyed four more, and three were also riddled with our bullets. After we had finished strafing them there was practically . no response from the German ' / machines. One of. our fighters "made a forced landing on the sands. We did not leave it "till we were satisfied that the pilot and the other members of the crew were uninjured."