R.A.F. MINE-LAYING

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 87, 13 April 1944, Page 5

R.A.F. MINE-LAYING

FOURTH ANNIVERSARY

Rec. 11.30 a.m

RUGBY, April 12,

' Tomorrow (Thursday) the R.A.F. Bomber Command celebrates its fourth anniversary of mine-laying in eneriiy waters. It has probably sunk over a million tons of enemy shipping, as more than 500 ships have been sunk or damaged.

Considerably more than 13,000 sorties have been flown on sea-mining operations, an average of o\ter 10 per cent, of the Bomber Command's effort being engaged in this work. The percentage of missing aircraft is little, if at all, below the average rate for bombers attacking industrial cities in Germany,but the losses are enormously outweighed by the casualties inflicted upon, enemy shipping. On occasions the weight of mines laid in a single night has exceeded the weight of bombs dropped by the Germans in the heaviest raids on England. Minelaying is often carried out at ranges probably greater than those of bombing offensives against Germany, and some of, the areas mined are equally well protected and are visited in verybad weather.

In 1940 Hampdens each carried one mine, weighing 1500 pounds, to mine the western Baltic and the Kiel Canal. Now Laneasters, Halifaxes, Stirlings, and Wellingtons carry multiple loads and lay them from the Spanish frontier along the entire enemy coast to distant Norwegian waters.—B.O.W.