COASTAL COMMAND

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 103, 3 May 1941, Page 9

COASTAL COMMAND

VAST AREA TO WATCH

DEFENCE AND ATTACK

NIGHT-RAID PROBLEM

(Rec. 11 a.m.)

RUGBY, May 2,

Discussing the work of the Coastal Command in a broadcast address, Air Commodore Goddard said that, working for the Navy from the Bay of Biscay and beyond, far out into the Atlantic, and up to the Arctic Ocean, it had a million: square miles of salt water to look at. A large part of its effort was used in searching for submarines. A larger part was spent in escorting convoys. Nearly 3500 convoys had been escorted by the Coastal Command, not counting the North Sea and Channel convoys. "These "air-escorted Atlantic convoys have been almost entirely immune from attack while our' escort has been on the job, but it is not always possible for them to keep with the convoy," he said.; "Foul weather and the need for building up the offensive strength in the Bomber Command are, for example, limiting factors. Coastal Command aircraft have in all engaged in about 50,000 air flights and in nearly 450 aerial combats, in which 271 enemy aircraft have been certainly damaged or destroyed. Seventy,-one have been brought down on the spot." ATTACKS ON WARSHIPS. Referring to the offensive side of the Air Force action for mastery of the Atlantic, Air Commodore Goddard assured his listeners that the results of the attacks at enemy naval bases had been substantial. It was sometimes asked why the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were still sitting ■ calmly at Brest. He preferred to put the question the other way—why had they not been out in the Atlantic! The obvious answer was that they had bomb disease. But these vessels were built to be unsinkable by bombs and they were lying in an intensely defended position. "To get a bomb to penetrate the upper, decks and through the thick armoured deck into the magazines and machinery requires great speed in the bomb," he said, "and unless the magazine blows up you do not know whether the armour-piercing bomb, which makes a very small hole in the upper deck, has really gone into the ship, while the bomb which misses and goes into the water is just a washout. So we use blast bombt. as well. I think both these ships have been decidedly damaged." As to. the answer to the night bombers, he said, "I do not ask you to be patient till some day something may happen. I say very definitely that something important has happened. Each blitz night we count the total number of enemy bombers that come over and work out the percentages brought down by various means. The monthly percentage of kills by night fighters has gone up substantially. That shows a tendency. It does not show anything decisive, but that tendency is very important."—B.O.W.