SIX MILES HIGH

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 113, 8 November 1940, Page 8

SIX MILES HIGH

RAIDER ATTACKED

CRASH TO EARTH

DAYLIGHT VISITS TO BRITAIN

(British Official Wireless.) (Received November 8, 1.30 p.m.) RUGBY, November 7. Three formations of enemy aircraft, states an Air Ministry communique, . approached this country' during the day. The first entered the Thames Estuary about midday but did not succeed in penetrating to the capital. About the same time a single enemy aircraft flew over London at a great height and was shot down. Second and third „ formations unsuccessfully attacked the Portsmouth area in the afternoon. Both attacks were intercepted and no damage or casualties have been reported. A few bombs were dropped early this afternoon on two east coast towns but caused j little damage and few casualties. .When a Messerschmitt 110 crashed^ on the outskirts''of London today two Hurricarie pilots did not know that! they, had shot this fighter-bomber f? down. It was first sighted as it flew * nearly six miles above the East An-/ glian coast. Our fighters were patrols ling 10,000 feet below and chased tb®, enemy over London, climbing all t tte time. Above Chiswick they came in/_o range of the German pilot, who tried i' to escape by climbing still higher, !&>ut one of our fighters opened fire at ,200 yards and, as he went into the attack, flashed past only ten yards from «the enemy. » The other fighter let the Meg serschmitt have all his ammunition * jjftien it had climbed to 31,000 feet. ■ The Messerschmitt rolled down; 4000 feet and then picked up 1000 f&s& before it escaped into a cloud. On landing at their base the flf ghter pilots reported that they had da/a iaged the bomber. They knew thait they had hit it but said that they had only seen black and white smo'-go coming from its engines. An int' illigence officer corrected them. They rhad destroyed it. The wreckage had idropped six miles out of the sky. -..;, PLANE-LOADS AT AT. J7ME. ) Despite an early and fierce* opening last night's raid on London i was less j prolonged than on the previ/d us night. The luftwaffe was overheads* for hours on end, but, instead of scatter.! ng bombs in pairs as has been done-' in other heavy onslaughts, the raiders appeared to unload whole plane-load s at one time. A stick of seven, higta -explosive bombs almost shaved the \xoof of a historic edifice and started a mountainous fire. Firemen we:re; in action before the debris had ceasf »(J falling. A block of business premises* j vas reduced to rubble, and salvos hets and,there wrecked rows of suburb; &i dwellings. Nuns, French soldiers, more roofspotters, and several me cabers of the Auxiliary Fire Service , were among the night's casualties, th'ji firemen suffering when a fire staticn received a direct hit. t An Air Ministry comrsmnique states that the enemy bomjjed rural districts in Yorkshire an* I the eastern counties. Four houses y/ere destroyed, but there were no serious casualties. The main attack afte# dark yesterday was against London. A block of flats was hit and houses, fj7.iops, and other buildings damaged, wtfth a number of people killed or injiij;ed. No serious damage was done in i the Home Counties or in south an^ south-east England, but a few pers> ims were killed or injured in one town„' in tha south-west A hotel and somite houses were, damaged in south-eaiit Scotland. A German communique refers to fires at Southampton i and other places in South England.; and attacks on Coventry, Birminf *nam, and Liverpool. An alert was sounded in the Liverpool area while *heir Majesties were making a tour <pf the city. Their Majesties talked , with Marian Doyle, aged 10, whose , mother and three brothers were "killed when a bomb i struck a corporation flats, and also with Mrs. The /mas, whose four sons were killed in the same block.