R.A.F. RAIDS

Grey River Argus, 2 August 1940, Page 7

R.A.F. RAIDS

ON THE CONTINENT. Official Wireless] RUGBY, July 31. An Air Ministry communique states: R.A.F. bombers carried out daylight attacks throughout yesterday on military objectives in northern France and Holland. Damage was done on sidings at Ostend, to dispersed aircraft on the Querquevitre aerodrome near Cherbourg, and <o hangars and other aircraft at St. Ingelbert and Boulogne. In the course of reconnaissance and escort duties, coastal command aircraft 'attacked gun emplacements on the Norwegian coast, and a supply ship off Haugesund, north or Stavanger. The Emden naval base was also attacked. One of our aircraft is missing. Night operations were curtailed, owing to bad weather, but attach were made on oil refineries at. Hamburg, in the Ruhr, and Monhum, near Dusseldorf; on goods yards m Soest, and aerodromes al Duisburg. Antwerp and Courtrai. No aircraft Were lost on these night operation:-. It is officially stated that 240 German planes were destroyed during July, involving 600 and men killed or taken prisoner. Many mo-.c-enemy aircraft have been put our or action in the air or on the ground, but the figure given takes account only of those which are confirmed a s having been destroyed. (Received August 1, 7 p.m.) RUGBY, August 1. A wide variety of targets was attacked by R.A.F. medium bombers yesterday in raids lasting to a late hour at night, and carried out over a wide area in northern France and Holland. Aerodromes, storage tanks, locks, and ships W;2re attacked. Over Ostend the pilot of one raider saw four hundred railway waggons packed closely together on parallel sidings. He unloaded bombs on the waggons, and as fragments flew high into the air fires broke out in many parts of the railway yards. In an attack on Flushing aerodrome, one

British aircraft was engaged by a number of Messerschmitt 109 fighters. One of the enemy machines was caught by a burst of fire from tne British rear-gunner, and was sent diving seawards with smoke streaming from the wings. The British bomber, although hit in one engine, returned safely. LONDON, August 1.

Herr Von Schroder, President or Germany’s A.R.P. Union, in an interview, admitted that British incendiary bombs had a greater penetrating power than had usually been presumed. Herr Von Schroder saia he had seen one explosive bomb splinter the siz e of a fist pass through a heavy oak door and two walls of a safe.