R.A.F. RAIDS

Grey River Argus, 18 June 1942, Page 3

R.A.F. RAIDS

U.S.A, Co-operation [British Official Wireless] RUGBY, June 16. During operations over occupied territory, Spitfires of the Fighter Command attacked a goods train, which was brought to a standsti.l, says the Air Ministry. They also set fire to three loaded barges between Bruges and Ostend. One fighter is missing. An Admiralty communique states: One enemy aircraft was destroyed, and others were driven off in an unsuccessful attack on one of our convoys off the south-west coast at midnight last night. No casualties or damage were sustained by any of our ships. . Describing operations directed against enemy vessels on Monday afternoon, the Air Ministry says that pilots of the 2nd Eagle Squadron were engaged in a successful attack on a German armed minesweeper off the north coast of Walchereu Island. The vessel, 150 feet long, was approached at such low altitude that one pilot could see its guns fore and aft. These were silenced and in spite of heavy fire from shore batteries the Spitfires went in again This time there were big explosions in the stern of the minesweeper. As the fighters flew away the mine sweeper was listing heavily, throwing out black smoke, and getting lower in the water. In the Nieuport Canal a couple or Spitfires from another squadron shot up a barge and attacked gun positions on the way home. Water thrown ui> by their cannon-snells splashed the windscreens of the low-flying aircraft.

Plane over Paris

MILITARY BUILDING SHELLED. LONDON., June 16. An unidentified ’plane believed to be Free French, flew over Paris at noon on June 13, and dropped the tricolour on the Unknown Warrior’s tomb in the Arc De Triomphe. It afterwards flew over the Champs Elysees and the Place de la Concorde, and machine-gunned German sentries outside the Navy Ministry. The Air Ministry News Service, giving details of a Beaufighter pilots action in Paris, says: The pilot twice travelled the length of the Champs d’Elysses. As a tribute to Free France, and to the glorious memory of the sons of France, who fell in the last Great War, he dropped a tricolour over the Arc de Triomphe, to fall as near as possible to the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, where the eternal lamp burns its splendid symbol. . , , Then he turned, and flying between buildings, fired a burst of cannon shells at the former French Ministry of Marine, now used by the. Nazis as military headquarters. The shells spattered the front of the building, and crashed through windows. The whole operations from the time the craft was air-borne until' it returned to its base occupied 150 minutes, and was carried (without any serious interference bv the enemy. Over France the day was fine, which meant no cloud cover whatever for the aircraft, so the airman hedgehopped all the wav across France and back again. The aircraft was so low that the pilot flew under many high-tension electric cables. At on e point, the aircraft crossed a German fighter aerodrome at a height of only 20 feet. Having dropped the flag, the pilot flew straight along the Champs d’Elysses level with the third-floor windows. People-in the streets stood amazed. Some waved and cheered /when they recognised it was a British machine over them.