R.A.F. Sorties From Thick Cloud

Manawatu Times, Volume 66, Issue 2, 3 January 1941, Page 7

R.A.F. Sorties From Thick Cloud

DARING ATTACKS ON VARIED OBJECTIVES (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Jan. 1. An Air Ministry communique states: “Several of our bombers attacked ■ targets in Germany and the Low CounI tries in the course of reconnaissance I flights yesterday. The weather was ; unfavourable, but bombs were seen to fall on a factory at Cologne. Objectives at Rotterdam and in the docks at Ymuiden were attacked, and near Flushing an anti-aircraft ship was hit and put out of action. Two of our planes are missing.” Later official reports on these daylight operations show that another aircraft bombed an important bridge near Emmerick, and that the enemy vessel attacked near Flushing was seen down by the stern and with a heavy list.

The raids in which only two British bombers were lost were made by a small force of Blenheim aircraft of the Bomber Command at intervals in the morning and afternoon. They made sudden sorties from the clouds, which hung low over the ground and attacked objectives in Germany and the Low Countries.

One pilot described how he swooped down on the bridge near Emmerich, in the north-west Ruhr district from under 500 feet. He saw a stick of bombs burst right across the bridge, and the bombs in the centre of the stick hit the bridge fair and square. His daring attack was made from the cover of dense cloud, but even below the clouds visibility was by no means good, and only from so low could the pilot make certain of a direct hit. Another aircraft was flown through or over thick cloud all the w r ay from Brest. Over Cologne the cloud opened and gave the bomb-aimer a chance which he took at once and scored a direct hit on a factory.

As a secondary target the Haamstede aerodrome was very successfully attacked from a low level. A long stick of bombs dropped across a building on the aerodrome, and after the bombs exploded it was seen that half the roof had been blown away. In the meantime tw r o Messerschmitt 109’s were coming up from below and astern, but the British aircraft climbed into the cloud and left the enemy behind.

Other targets attacked in the Low Countries were a German oil store at Rotterdam and docks at Ymuiden.

Throughout the raids, the R.A.F. bombers were constantly fired on by anti-aircraft guns from both land and