FORT DEFIES BOMBERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 60, 8 September 1941, Page 7

FORT DEFIES BOMBERS

ANTI-AIRCRAFT DEFENCE

SPIRIT OF GUNNERS

(By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright.,)

LONDON, September 7,

Reuters special correspondent in Tobruk says Tobruk has become a laboratory of anti-aircraft science, so remarkable are the successes of its gunners who have shot down 77 planes and probably destroyed at least 70 more. Tobruk has been subjected to 736 raids, in which 2892 enemy planes have been engaged. %

The anti-aircraft units will be entitled to special mention when the history of the war is written because local fighter support was withdrawn in April. United States and other observers have already been in Tobruk to study the results achieved.

Anti-aircraft headquarters have maps plotting every projectile that ( has ever fallen., These show that bombs were originally concentrated on the town and harbour, but that now the enemy has been forced to scatter them over a much wider area.

The gunners are completely oblivious of the bombs, though many are aimed directly at them. There is smoke and dust from explosions all around their positions at times. The gunners include a London bus driver, an architect, a coal miner, and a journalist. Most were in Norway before they came to the Middle East and were stationed at Tobruk.