BRITISH BOMBERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23882, 9 August 1939, Page 15

BRITISH BOMBERS

FLIGHT OVER FRANCE DISTANCE SAME AS TO BERLIN An important advance towards closer Franco-British defence co-operation was achieved when 12 R.A.F. squadrons of heavy and medium bombersmore than 100 machines in all—were despatched on long-distance training flights over France (wrote Group-cap-tain L. G. S. Payne in the Daily Telegraph «n July 12). This is to be the first of a series of such flights by Britsih pilots over French territory, and vice versa, which have been agreed on by the British and French Governments. Most of the heavy bombers, including Handley Page Hampdens and Vickers Wellingtons, left their bases in the Midlands shortly before 8 a.m. with orders to fly to Bordeaux, near the French Atlantic coast, and return to their own aerodromes without landing. This involved a journey over France of some 1200 miles, passing over a number of important French towns, including Le Havre, Le '.aumur, Angers, Le Mans, and Caen. The medium bombers were to follow a triangular route, via Le Treport, Orleans, and Le Mans, which entailed flying for about 900 miles over France. The pilots of these nachines also had instructions to return to their own aerodromes without landing. The squadrons were despatched independently in squadron formations, with orders to fly at about 6000 ft, weather permitting, except when over large towns, where they could descend to 3000 ft to enable the French public to have a clearer view of the machines. ' All the planes returned without incident, the last machines to leave at 11 a.m. were back on their own aerodromes by 5 p.m. The completion of this long-distance exercise without a single forced landing by more than 100 machines i." a very creditable achievement. The distance from Oxford, a town which has several R.A.F. bomber stations in its immediate vicinity, to Bordeaux, is slightly over 500 miles, or approximately the same as the distance from the coast of East Anglia to Berlin, by the North Sea route round the coast of Holland, or that from the shores of Kent to Milan.