NAZI AIR LOSSES

Opotiki News, Volume III, Issue 318, 2 October 1940, Page 4

NAZI AIR LOSSES

EQUAL TO OUTPUT DESTRUCTION BY R.A.F. 222 PLANES LAST WEEK BRITISH LOSE 69 (News by Cable.) LONDON, Sept. 30. Major Walter Elliott, in a speech, said the Royal Air Force during the past two months had shot down one German plane every .42 minutes which is the present rate of German production. The German losses of aircraft in attacks on Britain vary so greatly from the enormous figures on days when the Luftwaffe comes over in force to the smaller figures when only a few enemy aircraft make reconnaissance 11. gilts, that a periodic totalling is necessary in order to gain an idea of tho punishment the German Air Force is taking from the Royal Air Force. During the week ended at midnight Du September 28 the confirmed German aircraft losses were 222 machines in battles over Britain apart from machines damaged and believed to have been destroyed whose loss could not definitely be . confirmed by the careful methods of checking claims employed by the Air Ministry. The Royal Air Force lost 69 planes in the same period but 37 pilots were saved. It is estimated that the losses of German crews from aeroplanes whose loss is confirmed are not less than 550.