HIT BY TORPEDOES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 116, 19 May 1942, Page 5

HIT BY TORPEDOES

THE PRINZ EUGEN

RAJ. ATTACK OFF COAST OF NORWAY

LONDON, May 18. The German cruiser Prinz Eugen, which was attacked off the Norweg»an coast on Sunday by Beauforts, Hudsons, and Beaufighters, was definitely hit by two torpedoes, There was a third "probable." The Hudsons attacked with bombs, and the Beaufighters dived and raked escorting destroyers with cannon and machine-gun fire, after which t L*SK^ SSS" MSm S °ff of the anti-aircratt barrage. The Prinz Eugen was sighted in Trondheim Fiord on Saturday by reconnaissance planes of the Coastal Command. A striking force of torpedocarrying Beauforts, Hudsons, and Blenheims, with escorting fighters, left Brk tain to intercept the cruiser, which was found near the southern tip of Norway, apparently making a dasfrfor Germany. She was escorted by four destroyers and formations of fighters, There was a heavy engagement, in which many air combats were fought, Five Messerschmitts were shot down and several others damaged. Nine R.A.F. aircraft are missing. It was still light when the British aircraft found the Prinz Eugen. Some evidence of the effectiveness of the attack has been given in eye-witness reports.

A New Zealand squadron leader, a Beaufort pilot of some experience, said: "As I swung round to get away, I saw a column of smoke leap up from the stern of the Prinz Eugen.- It was a great column of dirty black smoke, well up above the superstructure. Fifteen seconds later there was another loud explosion." A sergeant pilot who attacked almost immediately afterwards saw a sheet of flame spring up from the cruiser. He said: "I got a glimpse of other torpedoes running well towards the ship after my own attack:" HEAVY AIR DEFENCE.

As the R.A.F. pilots went in one after the other to send their torpedoes skimming towards the cruiser, they were heavily engaged by enemy fighters. A gunner of one British plane was wounded early in the action, but kept blazing away for the whole 35 minutes with only one serviceable gun, and accounted for three enemy fighters.

The 10,000-ton cruiser. Prinz Eugen is one of the five heavy cruisers of th« Hipper class, and was launched in August, 1938. She first came into the news in May, 1941, when she accompanied the Bismarck on the ill-fated foray into the Atlantic to prey on British merchant ships. She escaped the fate of the Bismarck and put into Brest, where for nine months she lay immobilised under repeated bombing by the R.A.F. In February of this year she left Brest with the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and a few days ago the British submarine Trident attacked her off the Norwegian coast and scored hits with torpedoes. Photographs showed that her stern was badly damaged.