Day of Sustained Channel Offensives

Manawatu Times, Volume 66, Issue 196, 19 August 1941, Page 5

Day of Sustained Channel Offensives

TWO NEW ZEALANDERS ATTACK TEN MESSERSCHMITTS

(British Oflicial Wireless.) Received Monday, 9.20 p.m. RUGBY, Aug. 17.

In a day of sustained offensives pilots of the Fighter Command destroyed seven enemy fighters and damaged many others, states the Air Ministry News Service. A bomber had beer, escorted to attack shipping off the French coast. “Flak” ships had been hit and sweeps carried out in which the lighters machine-gunned enemy aircraft on the ground. Two New Zealand pilots found an escort of ten Messersclimitts protecting an enemy convoy. They attacked and saw their fire hitting enemy aircraft. A Spitfire squadron then arrived and the Messerschmitts fled. Another squadron was ordered to attack a “flak” ship in a convoy escort and pressed home the attack low across the ship’s deck in the face of terrific fire. Another Spitfire squadron reports breaking up formations in combats which stretched from Cap Gris Nez to Boulogne. They attacked fifteen Me*serschmitt 109’s and destroyed three without loss to themselves.

During the week ended at dawn on Sunday, Britain lost 53 bombers and 18 fighters. The Luftwaffe lost 39 fighters, and over Britain, where the Nazis carried out only token raids, they lost one bomber, ‘in the Mediterranean, Britain lost five machines and the Axis One German bomber was destroyed and two others severely damaged, states an Admiralty communique, when a number of enemy aircraft yesterday evening made a determined but unsuccessful 9 attack on a British convoy. The enemy was met by gunfire from the ships of the convoy and the escort. There were no casualties to the ships. An Air Ministry communique states that a single enemy aircraft dropped bombs on Sunday afternoon at a point, near the south-east coast of Scotland causing some damage. A very small number of cnsualties was caused by machine-gun fire from the enemy aircraft.