SICILY RAIDED

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 204, 30 July 1941, Page 7

SICILY RAIDED

34 PLANES DESTROYED

CLASHES IN LIBYA

(United Press Association —Copvright.) (Rec. 11 a.m.) RUGBY, July 29.

The destruction of 34 Italian aeroplanes is announced in the R.A.E. Middle East communique, which states that highly successful attacks were carried out yesterday by the R.A.E. on enemy aerodromes in Sicily. Thirty-four enemy aircraft wore destroyed and others damaged, and casualties were inflicted on aerodrome personnel. Wc lost no aircraft. At Catania lour Alacehi 2uo’s. six Savoia 79’s and one Junkers 52 were destroyed. Several other Alacehi fighters and trainer biplanes were damaged. * At Syracuse seven Cant flying-boats were destroyed and a number of the same type damaged At Alarsala, on the western extremity of the island, seven Cant flyingboats were destroyed and a number of others damaged. At the Borizzo landing ground, near Trapani, nine Savoia 79’s were destroyed and about 25 of the ground staff killed. R.A.F'. bombers attacked a. loaded schooner in the Centra) Mediterranean yesterday and left it in a sinking condition.

Heavy bombers again attacked Benghazi on Sunday night, bombs , being uropped from a low altitude causing fires and explosions on the moles. From these operations all ours returned safely A Cairo Headquarters communique says that, owing to unfavourable weather conditions locally, our offensive patrols at Tobruk carried out only limited operations on Sunday night. No contact was made with the enemy.

In the frontier area, as a result of our aggressive activities, enemy coun-ter-patrolling has temporarily increased, both in numbers and the areas covered. In one successful clash yesterday, one of our patrols captured some German prisoners, with two mechanical transport vehicles and two motorcycles .—0 ffici a 1 W i reless.