R.A.F. OFFENSIVE

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 July 1941, Page 5

R.A.F. OFFENSIVE

GERMANY AGAIN BOMBED ATTACKS ON SHIPPING LONDON, July 14. In spite of unfavourable weather, Royal Air Force bombers last night attacked targets over a wide area in Germany and occupied territory. Raids were made on Bremen and Vegersack, in north-west Germany, on the docks at Amsterdam and Ostend, and on oil storage tanks at Rotterdam. Enemy-occupied aerodromes in northern France were also attacked. One British bomber is missing from the night’s operations. It is reported that British fighters carried out another offensive patrol over the Channel to-day. RUGBY, July 14.

During daylight operations over northern France, early this morning, two enemy fighters were destroyed. An Air Ministry communique states: “Aircraft of the Bomber Command were again over north-west Germany, last night, though the weather continued to be unfavourable. They attacked industrial targets over a wide area, especially in Bremen and Begesack. Docks at Amsterdam and Ostend were also bombed, and fires started among oil storage tanks at Rotterdam. “Aircraft of the Fighter Command on an offensive patrol attacked an enemy aerodrome in northern France during the night. “From these operations, one aircraft of the Bomber Command is missing.” FRENCH PORTS ATTACKED.

RUGBY, July 14. An Air Ministry communique states: At daylight, early this morning, Blenheim aircraft of the Bomber Command, escorted by fighters, attacked the docks and shipping at Cherbourg and Le Havre. At Cherbourg a ship of about six thousand tons was hit and set on fire. Direct hits were also seen on. the railway station,' south of the docks, on locomotive .sheds, and a factory. At Le Havre, a ship of about six thousand tons was hit, and later seen half-submerged. Later in the morning, another escorted formation of Blenheims attacked the railway yards at Hazebrouck. Many sticks of bombs were seen to fall on the target. Seven enemy fighters were destroyed in the course of these operations. Two of our bombers and four fighters are missing. MORE SHIPS HIT. RUGBY, July 14. Successful attacks were made this morning by R.A.F. bombers on two 6000 ton ships at Cherbourg and Le Havre, as already announced. Further R.A.F. successes during the day against enemy shipping are announced. Another Air Ministry communique states: “During a search for enemy shipping, this afternoon, Blenheim aircraft of the Bomber Command attacked a small convoy off the Dutch Frisian Islands. One vessel of 6000 tons received three direct hits. Another 3000 tonner was hit on the stern, and an escort vessel of 1500 tons was hit aft and amidships. An enemy fighter which attacked our bombers was shot down into the sea. From this operation, none of our aircraft is missing.— 8.0.W.

“PARTY FOR EVERYBODY.” ~ RUGBY, July 14. A wing commander who shot down a Messerschmitt and damaged several others described the British fighters work over France as “one of the best parties ever.” He continued: “We were over the target when we saw 18 Messerschmitt 109 F’s flying to one side of a Messerschmitt in line astern. I detailed two other Spitfires to follow me around to attack them head on. They quickly broke up into pairs, but I managed to get in quick bursts at three of them. Soon there was a party for everybody. One Messerschmitt that I hit went down in a vertical dive with black and white smoke pouring from behind. I attacked another which also began to go straight down and I jumped on him and chased him down vertically, firing with mv machine-guns most of the time. He burst into flames. This party happened over a wood which, from tne sky, looks like a big map of England, and it gave us a kick at seeing the Huns go scrambling down.” The unsuccessful tactics employed by German ships when attacked by a single Royal Air Force bomber are described in an Air'Ministry account of how a German mine-sweeper of 120 tons was swept by fire from end to end after being bombed off Ushant on Saturday. ' The ship was the largest of three sighted by a Hudson of the Coastal Command, which closed to investigate. As soon as the aircraft came within range the ship opened fire and was followed by the other two. The ships had arranged themselvs on three sides of a square, leaving the fourth side open to the aircraft s course, ana they concentrated their fire on this passage. In order to attack, the Hudson had to weave its way almost at sea level through an intensive barrage. It was only 50 yards from the largest ship when the pilot let go a salvo of heavy bombs with a slight delay action on them to allow him to getclear before they exploded. Every bomb hit, and as the Hudson pulled away the crew saw the ship become a mass of flames. She ceased to fire immediately and listed heavily to port. She appeared likely to sink at any moment. Then the Hudson had to look to its own safety. The aircraft, which was hit many times, came out of the attack with its port engine on fire. The flames died, down, but the other engine cut out after the pilot had pulled the aircraft up to 1000 feet. The crew found that no fuel was reaching the engine and it picked up again after petrol was pumped from the tank by hand. The crew also managed to get the port engine going and made a safe landing. FEW RAIDS ON BRITAIN. LONDON, July 14. Two enemy aircraft were destroyed over Britain last night, when activity was on a small scale. Bombs were dropped at a few places in coastal districts and at one place in the Midlands. A small number of casualties were reported but nowhere was extensive damage done. At one place in East Anglia a few houses were destroyed. In daylight there was nothing to report. TWO ENEMY LOSSES. RUGBY, July 14. An official communique states: A small number of enemy aircraft have been off our coasts to-day, and a few have flown inland, but there is no report of any bombs being dropped. Two enemy bombers were destroyed this afternoon, one by antiaircraft gunfire on the east coast of Scotland, and the other by fighters off the coast of Wales.—-8.0.W. GREAT FALL~IN CASUALTIES RUGBY, July 14. The following are the air-raid casualty figures for June, issued by the Ministry of Home Security: Killed 399, injured and detained in hospital 461’. Of those killed, 175 were men, 160* women, and 64 children under 16 years. Of those injured and de-

tained in hospital, 239 are men, 174 women, and 47 children under 16 years.—B.O.W. COMPARATIVE LOSSES RUGBY, July 13. Britain’s continued air offensives against industrial Germany in no wise disturb British air supremacy, according to figures for the week ended at dawn on July 13, when German losses over Britain were 22, 20 of whicn were by night. Royal Ah’ Force losses were none. German losses over Europe were 82, one of them by night, and Royal Air Force losses 85, 30 by night. From these 85 machines eight pilots are safe. Axis and Vichy .losses in the Middle East, excluding the figures in the Royal Air Force Middle East communique of July 13, which are not yet obtainable, were 30. Royal Air Force losses were li. Meanwhile the Royal Navy has announced that one enemy aircraft was destroyed by naval vessels and merchant ships, and one by a merchant ship on an unspecified date. i The. Under-Secretary of State for Air (Captain Harold Balfour), who has arrived in Ottawa from England, said: “The Royal Air Force has succeeded where the Germans have failed. It has gained control of the air in occupied countries and is also smashing Germany with bombs.” He predicted that air \ parity with Germany would soon be attainable, and he declared that the British bombing would cause the Germans to recall their aeroplanes from the Russian front or the German people would complain of betrayal by their leaders.—B.O.W. BRITISH BOMBER LOST. LISBON, July 14. The ’plane which crashed in the sea was apparently a British bomber. A parachute has been found nearby. A British commercial ’plane which was thought to have been the one that crashed has arrived here safely. 8i DAYS IN DINGHY. REMARKABLE - ENDURANCE. “RUGBY, July 13. The ordeal undergone by four members of the crew of a British bombei who drifted in the English Channel for eight days and a-half, provides a typical example of British endurance The bomber had set out for a raid on Dusseldorf, but soon after it had crossed the enemy coast the port engine began to give trouble and the pil-. ot turned back over the coast. This engine failed and 10 minutes later the starboard engine began to lose power, resulting in a forced landing in the Channel. Unaware that they were in the midst of a minefield the members of the crew climbed into their dinghy. “The trouble was,” the pilot said later, “we were down in the drink and no one knew anything about it. The wireless operator had sent an SOS message, but it was not received because the generator was run off one of the motors.” Then followed a continuous ordeal of raised and dashed hopes as British aircraft passed anc repassed without seeing the airmen in spite of their waving and flash signalling. The crew’s rations were e few boiled sweets, a tin of food tablets, a few ounces of concentrated chocolate, a pint of water and a smal bottle of rum. The sweets and tablets lasted about four days. “After the second day wc didn’t feel hungry,” the pilot said. “What we wanted was water. We began by allowing ourselves a tablespoonful each twice a day and measured it out in the lids of tins. I was the official measurer. After three days, we cut the water down to a tablespoonful a day and on the seventh day our ration only just wet the bottom of the lid. We were beginning to feel very thirsty by then. We made a fishing line by unravelling a piece of cord from the dinghy and tying pieces together and we made a spinner from a piece of twine.’ We could see plenty of fish, but none would bite.

“One day when we were trying to see who could hold his head under water longest the navigator lifted his head out of the water. ‘There’s a damn great'mine down there,’ he said. We began to realise then why we hadn’t seen any ships. We made up our minds to try to paddle towards where we thought the coast was. “We started at 11 o’clock one morning and kept it up till eight that night, working two at a time in half-hour shifts. The next day we had a go at it from eight in the morning till eight in the evening. We tried to keep it up through the night as well, but our strength was going. I found I couldn’t even stand up in the dinghy. We haci to keep pumping the dinghy with a hand pump and we were so weak we couldn’t do more than a dozen strokes at a time. “On the eighth evening a Hampden bomber, escorted by two Hurricanes appeared from the west at 20,000 feel and turned north almost above us. We all waved, but they did not see us. By how we were out of drinking water and our tongues were beginning to swell and crack. We rinsed our mouths with sea water but didn’t drink any. “At 8.20 a.m. on the ninth day, a Hampden came out of the sun at about 2000 feet and passed us a-quar-ter of a mile away. We waved anc flashed our mirrors. The Hampden did a half turn, banked, and put its nose down. Then we realised we had been seen. We joined hands and sang ‘Auld Lang Syne.’ The Hampden signalled by lamp: ‘Help coming.’ Then it dropped its dinghy on the water. We paddled over and got a water bottle from the dinghy and shared out the water. Then we hitched the twe

dinghies together and sat waiting. At last we saw a spurt of foam which quickly got nearer and nearer. Then we saw a launch. When we got or board we couldn’t walk without help.”

The four men are now sitting up in their beds in a Royal Air Force hospital, taking an enforced rest.

SAVING BURNING BOMBER. WANGANUI PILOT’S HEROISM. ~RUGBY, July 13. A thrilling story of a successful effort to bring home a burning bomber is told by the Air Ministry. A Wellington bomber, returning with its crew well satisfied, from a raid on Muenster, had reached the Zuider Zee when suddenly a Messerschmitt 110 came up from underneath and raked the bomber from end to end. The front.gunner was wounded in the foot, and the bomber’s starboard engine was badly damaged, the hydraulic system and wireless were put out of action, the undercarriage fell down, the bomb doors fell open and the intercommunication set failed. The pilot’s cockpit was filled with smoke, and fumes and worst of all a sheet of flame four or five feet long gushed out where one of the petrol feed pipes in the wing had been split open by a cannon shell. It must have seemed to the pilot that the bomber’s end had come, for he closed in recklessly, and then turned and exposed the belly of his aircraft. As he did so the rear gunner sent 200 rounds crashing into it. The Messerschmitt rolled over on its back and, apparently out of control, went down into a steep spiral aive with smoke pouring from the englWhen all attempts to extinguish the fire from the leaking petrol pipe had failed, the second pilot—a New Zealander from Wanganui—decided to climb out along the wing to try to smother the fire with the cockpit cover. At first he was going without ? parachute as he thought that this would lessen the wind resistance, but the rest of the crew insisted that he should wear it. They tied the rope from the dinghy round his waist, and with the navigator holding the end of

:he rope, he climbed out of the astro hatch. He had to get down about three feet from the hatch to the wing and then another three feet along the wing.

“First I had to hang on to the astro hatch while I worked out how I was going to do it,” he said. “Then I hopped out on to the wing. I kicked holes down the side of the fuselage which exposed the geodetics and gave me a loothold. I Held on with one aand until I had got two footholds on the wing. The fire and the blast from the Messerschmitt’s cannon shells mid stripped part of the wing coverng and that helped. Then 1 caught .lold of some of the sections of the wing with the other hand and managed to get down flat on to the wing. Viy feet were well dug in, and I was hanging on with both hands. Once I could not get enough hold and the wind lifted me partly off the wing and sent mo against the fuselage again. But I still had my feet twisted in and I managea to get Hold of the edge of the astro hatch and I worked myself back on to the wing again. “It was just a matter of getting ■something to hang on to. It was like being in a terrific gale, only much worse than any gale I have ever known. As I got along the wing I was behind the airscrew so I was in the slipstream as well. Once or twice I thought I was going. I had the cockpit cover tucked underneath me as I lav flat on the wing. I tried to push the cover down through the hole in the wing on to the leaking pipe where the fire was coming from, blit the parachute on my chest prevented me from getting close enough to the wing and the wind kept on lifting me. 'The cover nearly dragged me off. I stuffed it down through the hole, but as soon as I took my hand away the terrific wind blew it out n. '’‘‘Mv arms were getting tired and I had to try a new hold. I was hanging on with mv left arm. Then as soon as 1 moveci my right Rand, the cover blew out of the hole again and was gone before I could grab it. After that there was nothing to do but to get back again. The navigator kept the strain on the rope and I pullca myself back along tne wing and up the side of the fuselage to the astro hatch, holding on as tight as I could. Getting back was worse than going out, and by this time I was pretty well all in. The hardest pt the lot was getting my right leg in. In tne end the navigator reached cut and pulled it in.” ~ Over the North Sea the crew jettisoned the front guns, ammunition and flares. They were 10 miles off the coast of England when the petrol, which made a pool inside the wing, blazed up furiously and burnt more holes in the fabric, but then as suddenly the fire died down and at the same time the flame from the ,petro| pipe went out. The pilot fled inland and with no flaps, no brakes, and witn the bomb doors open, c l rc strange aerodrome which hs hed chosen because it had a larger landing ground than his own base. He called up the flare path: We have been badly shot up. I hope we don t mess up your flare path too badly when we land.” He landed safely..