ALLIED AIR ACTIVITY

Grey River Argus, 28 April 1943, Page 1

ALLIED AIR ACTIVITY

IN FRANCE AND BELGIUM. LONDON, April 26. Mosquitoes, without loss, bombed centres in Germany and France . on Monday evening. In the day time, attacks were made in France and Belgium. A barge on, a canal near Bruges disappeared after a Whirlwind had bombed it from 50 feet, and a second barge was left half submerged. Seven other barges were damaged. Other Whirlwinds destroyed lock gates near Calais, and a locomotive near Ghent, and successfully attacked goods trains and other objectives. Two of our aircraft are missing. On Friday, a medium-sized enemy merchant ship was hit by torpedoes, and a small escort vessel was attacked by cannon and machine-gun fire off Norway. The merchant ship was in convoy, and after the attack was enveloped in a plume, of smoke 200 feet high. When the enemy ships were sighted one Hampden from a New Zealand squadron, with an English captain, went in to attack. “We met heavy anti-aircralft ifiire 'from the merchant vessel, and light antiaircraft fire from a destroyer. Later, my gunner told me we had scored a. hit,” said the captain. Formidable armament is a feature of the Ventura, a twin-engined medium bomber, which is produced by the Vega Aircraft Corporation, of Burbank, California. It is an all-metal mid-wing monoplane, and ■ the military version of Lockheed’s Lodestar. It carries a crew of four. It has either eight or 10 guns—two fixed guns of .5 and the rest .303. Two of these are in the Boulton Paul upper turret (in the later version of the Boulton Paul a four-gun turret is installed.) All the - forward guns are fired electrically by the pilot. The maximum speed is about 300 miles an hour, and the cruising speed is about 260 miles an hour. The maximum range is about 1,000 miles, at 16,000 feet, and the maximum bomb load is 2,500 lb. The United States War Department reveals it has a sensational radio ranging device, radars, with which the approach of enemy ships, and aircraft can be detected The detector utilises ultra-high frequency waves which bounce back when they strike an object, and can be measured from time intervals. Radars operate through fog, darkness, and storms.