THIRTEEN TO ONE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 6 December 1940, Page 5

THIRTEEN TO ONE

SCORE IN DAY’S AIR BATTLES

BRITISH FIGHTERS’ GOOD TALLY ENEMY FORMATIONS SCATTERED [British Official Wireless] Received 6th Dec., 1 1.20 a.m. RUGBY, sth December. British fighters destroyed 12 enemy aircraft and the antiaircraft defences one for the loss of one fighter, of which the pilot is safe during raids on Britain to-day. The official communique announcing this success states: “This morning a number of enemy fighters and fighter-bombers which flew over east Kent were intercepted by our fighters and scattered. During the afternoon other enemy aircraft crossed the coast of Kent and came inland. They were also attacked and put to flight. Bombs dropped by these raiders caused some damage to houses and other buildings and injured a number of people.”

German raiders flew over an area in the Midlands last night, dropping fire and explosive bombs, but the attack did not last long. London, also, had a short alert. A.R.P. squads, joined by members of the Pioneers Corps are still striving to locate the remainder of the women and children trapped under the bombed ruins of the London Convent, mentioned in messages yesterday. There is little hope of any of those buried being alive. GERMAN COMMUNIQUE [U.P.A.-By Electric Telegraph-Copyright] (Received 6th December, 10.45 a.m.) LONDON, sth December. A German communique for the first time for some weeks makes no claims regarding attacks on shipping, but it boasts of fictitious fires in London. It admits that the R.A.F. bombed west Germany, claiming as usual that only dwellings were damaged.

LEARNING FROM RECENT RAID

TURNING SUFFERING TO ADVANTAGE MINISTER SPEAKS TO PEOPLE OF SOUTHAMPTON [British Official Wireless] (Received 6th December, 12.20 a.m.) RUGBY, sth December. Lessons learned in the raids on Southampton, Coventry, Birmingham, Bristol and elsewhere are being worked out and will be sent to every region in the country. The Minister of Home Security, Mr Herbert Morrison gave this assurance during a speech at Southampton in which he also paid a tribute to the splendid fight put up by the civil defence services and the magnificent spirit of the civil population under the city’s recent ordeal. “Grievous as the sufferings of Southampton and other heavily bombed towns have been,” said Mr Morrison, “we are trying to extract from them whatever advantage we can. It may be some consolation to the people of bombed cities to know that every time the ordeal is inflicted we are taking care to ensure that the enemy’s task on the next occasion will be a little more difficult and our own work of countering the attack a little more effective.”

After expressing grateful appreciation of the effective help rendered by the army in coping with some recent problems arising from the bombing Mr Morrison closed with a tribute to the extraordinary valour of the Greek Nation, whose example “gives us a timely reminder that courage, brains and inflexible determination can upset calculation fully as swiftly, unexpectedly and thoroughly as David with his sling overthrew the clanking champion of the Philistines.

“WILL BE COUNTERED”

BOMBING OF INDUSTRIAL CENTRES CAPTAIN BALFOUR CONFIDENT (Received 6th December, 12.20 p.m.) RUGBY, sth December. Captain H. H. Balfour, Under-Secre-tory for Air, speaking at a luncheon of the Eagle Squadron of volunteer United States pilots in the R.A.F. said that the squadron symbolises the absolute determination common in both the United States of America and the British Empire to preserve the right to lead national and individual lives free of domination by the crushing heel of Nazidom. The squadron’s personnel had been watching the successive phases of the battle of Britain in the air. Now the trtrman air force had transferred its attention to industrial centres and was making a frontal attack on industry. “These enemy attacks bring in their train the wanton slaughter of innocent civilians,” said Captain Balfour, “but we must face the fact that the frontline of the war is in the factory here. We must, and do accept the challenge of the enemy to damage, destroy and kill, but just as his indiscriminate bombing raids have failed, so will the effect of this present form of attack be countex-ed. We accept the dai’k as well as the brght passages of the war and to-day we are more determined and more certain of victory than ever in the past.”