ROYAL AIR FORCE IN ACTION

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 10 January 1940, Page 3

ROYAL AIR FORCE IN ACTION

DARING RAID ON BORKUM GERMANS TAKEN BY SURPRISE LONDON, Ist December. Flying in four sections of three ( each, a long range Royal Air Force f fighter patrol machine-gunned one of Germany’s strongest air bases at ( Borkum this week, writes the Lon- ] don correspondent of the Christ- ■, church Press. The aircraft fired on five German seaplanes and damaged ] two seriously; they put three out of 1 four machine-gun posts on the mole ; out of action; they riddled enemy 1 patrol boats with bullets; they col- ’ lected valuable information of the island’s fortifications. Then they 1 flew 200 miles home, unscathed and i in the dark. : On his return, one of the pilots described the raid as “a few glorious moments of low straffing.” The pat- : rol which made the attack returned ; as it went —a complete squadron of 12 twin-engined fighters, piloted by six Royal Air Force Regulars and six members of the Auxiliary Air Force. Not one member of the crews had been under fire before. In spite of the intense barrage by German guns, none of the 36 men sustained any injury, and not a single aircraft bore any bullet mark. The patrol, sent out to reconnoitre the German base and attack seaplanes in the air or at their base, emerged from a cloud a short distance from the targets. The machines swooped down in four sections of three aircraft each, spraying machine-gun bullets from heights of sometimes well below 100 feet. One of the aeroplanes skimmed through a gap in the mole. A COMPLETE SURPRISE The Germans were taken completely by surprise. The British crews could see men running in all directions, while some gunners, occupying a post on top of a hangar, fell to the ground. For a while there was confusion. Then anti-aircraft guns and the coastal patrol boats got into action, but the standard of firing was not very high. One member of a crew said; “The Germans probably never thought that they would have to hit anything so low in the Another account said: The British aircraft encountered no enemy aircraft on the outward journey. They arrived at their objective with 29 minutes to spare before complete darkness. The defence was taken by surprise, and the leading section attacked the seaplanes they could see on the slipways. Machine-guns on the roofs of the hangars and pompom guns opened fire on them, and ships also began firing. The aeroplanes turned their machine-guns on the seaplanes, the machine-gun posts on the roofs, and on the pom-poms and then made off. No enemy fighters came up to engage them and no aircraft were observed on the return flight. The German High Command communique admitted the raid, but claimed that no damage was caused. “Undoubtedly a daring exploit,” was the discription given by authoritative German sources quoted by the British United Press. The British raiders caught the Germans completely unawares, and machinegunned the aerodrome from a height of nine or 10 feet, these sources revealed. They claimed, however, that no serious damage was done. They disappeared into the mist before the German defence could go into action. DRAMATIC FIGHT There was a dramatic fight off the Northumbrian coast this week, when a Royal Air Force fighter forced a Heinkel bomber into the sea. The bomber first appeared flying east from behind a bank of cloud. Turning to intercept, the fighter pilot ducked back into the clouds for about 30 seconds. When he came out of the clouds the enemy was immediately above him. As he climbed, the enemy was immediately above him. As he climbed, the enemy waited until the fighter was only 400 yards away, and then dived for the cloud 1500 feet below, one of his rear guns firing. The fighter followed, with tracer bullets from the enemy flashing over the cockpit. He fired a burst and the enemy was silenced. He then closed in to 150 yards, still firing, when the enemy at once turned on his side and dived vertically . into the clouds, a great column of smoke issuing from the aircraft. Suddenly the fighter pilot saw his own danger. From the gloom he saw the sea coming up to hit him. Just in i time he pulled up and climbed into the sunshine again. Though he could 1 not see what had happened, he was ' able to fly home to breakfast with ; the feeling that he had done his job. A Northumberland workman told ; a graphic story of the fight. “I saw , one of our fighter machines heading , seawards,” he said. “Then I spotted ; another much larger aeroplane com- . ing from the north. Owing to the , poor visibility it was little more than I a black smudge in the sky. “At first it headed right across the t harbour, and then opened fire first ? on our aeroplane. The fighter returned the fire, and I could see flames spitting between the two machines. “Suddenly the German seemed to dr °P low and I saw the Air Force , machine diving down on him at terrific speed. He was firing all the } way. The German aeroplane was headed off and turned out to sea. The . fighter clung to him and chased him - out seawards until the two machines i vanished in the haze, but I could . still hear the machine gun fire in - the distance. It was all over in two v minutes, but a quarter of an hour 1 later I saw the fighter returning. It » was a grand fight while it lasted, ? and I only wish I had seen the end.”