RAIDS ON ENGLAND

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21624, 9 April 1940, Page 5

RAIDS ON ENGLAND

As Seen By a German Repelled By Fighters Nazi Germany has at least an honest name for its war correspondents. It has organised them into “Propaganda Companies,” says a writer in the “Manchester Guardian.” They are a branch of the army, serving the State, not “capitalist newspaper concerns,” as Goering’s “National Zeitung” explains in an enthusiastic article on them. In other words, they serve the public with what the Nazi State decides that it shall have. The special articles they turn out are marked “P.K.” (Propaganda-Kompagnie). Two of these articles, purporting to describe flights over British waters, are here quoted. The first is from the “Volkischer Boebachter” of January 26: — Our two Heinkels 111 set off southwest shortly before sunset on the hardest task, the reconnaissance of the Thames Estuary', says the article. It stinks of anti-aircraft and fighter craft! Quickly we left behind us the German patrol boats and flew on over the North Sea. But what was that? Ahead of us lay a stretch of coast. A short glance at chart, clock, and course. No question about it —we were just off the French coast. In a few moments the fresh course was set for the English coast. Now we were right! The objective lay before us, the Thames Estuary. The North Foreland There in front of us in the dusk was the North Foreland lightship. England! In a steep curve the pilot brought the craft round in the direction of the Thames Estuary. A vital nerve leading to the central organ of Great Britain lay below us. German fighting craft over the Thames! England, do you begin to feel it? There are no longer any islands! And it was really so. Ship aftership lay in the bight. Their hulls stood out clearly, large and small in the growing dusk. Ten, twenty, thirty merchant vessels of all sorts and classes. Our two Heinkels 111 roared from boat to boat to ferret out the fattest morsel. There seemed to be a surprising number of neutrals among them!

Soon we had passed over the bight; beyond it the English mainland was outlined in hard contours against the evening sky. Harwich must be somewhere in that direction, a rapid glance at the chart told us. We made a wide curve and flew up the bight again. A steamer, a fat creature, had caught our attention. She vyas of at least 5000 tons, and was sailing westward without lights; she must therefore be English. At her, and send her down into Churchill’s mass grave! Damnation she was lit up, a neutral—really? None of us believed it at that moment. But orders were orders; we had to respect the sign of neutrality, and we rushed on to the next. Wast of time! She was lying on the bed; no sending her lower; on! The Fighters Appear What new trick was that? An antenna from buoy to buoy? Wrong! An antenna from mast to mast! only there was no sign of a ship. She lay on the bottom; only her antenna had no': yet been earthed! Suddenly the machine-gunner shouted "Fighters!” Sure enough, there was a young fellow flying low, close above the dark surface of the water. I' ? was still a good kilometer away. He was by no means the only one. as we found on making a quick turn; six more fighters were making straight for the Thames Estuary. Our pilot with the unpleasant surprise behind him, responsible for the craft and for the lives of her crew—nobody would have cared to be in his shoes at that moment—plunged down close to the water and put on speed with the motors all out. Bravo! the chaps had been shaken off; the haze over the water swallowed us before they came up with us. On our way back we found that the other craft had successfully flown off in another direction.

We still had our bombs. Cautiously we looked out on all sides. Cautiously the commander and his crew stalked the vessel once more. She spoiled our game by flying neutral colours and lighting the sidelights. Dutchmen, Belgians, to go by the colours, but who were hiding under those colours? English?

Damnation, fighters again! This time pretty well a dozen. At all events, they were some way off. They disappeared at once in a cloud and put on speed, but before they could take aim at us the darkness had swallowed us. There was still a band of red along the western horizon. The Excitement Over On board the excitement of the day was over. The motors sang their monotonous song. The wireless operator was still hard at it. He was trying to get from a specified frequency his bearings for the homeward course. The sign was given to announce to the landing authorities the coming of German flyers. Soon the operator asked for landing lights to Toe shown at our home port. Then we prepared for our night landing. All would be quiet at the aerodrome for a few hours until work began again at dawn. The second “P.K.” report, from the same special correspondent, appeared in the “Berliner Borsen-Zeitung” of February 3. It was headed: “Bombers in an air engagement. British fighters helpless against the oncoming German formations." To-day’s task was a pretty hard nut to crack, says the report. An armed convoy escorted by warships was to be attacked, and that in the proximity of the coast. Facing the whole lot of them! Coastal batteries, ships’ antiaircraft fire, fighters—and in addition to that perhaps a long search giving the British outlook vessels the most marvellous chance to send unhindered tire news of the approach of German bombers. Here was the Moray Firth already in sight. Our formations thundered in the direction of Aberdeen, the machine-gunners keeping a sharp look-out from the stern, ready to ward off any attack. But still there was not a sign of anything! Neither of the expected convoy nor of fighters —good and ill luck in the same breath. Now they thundered along the coast at the level of Edinburgh, and a wild chase began—nine British fighters.

Escape Impossible Now' then! They came on at breakneck speed; there was no evading them. Already the first bullets were rattling against the planes. The German bombers sprayed the enemy with shot from every machine-gun; now they had passed us, flown off, and formed up for a new attack. Ah, what was that? The left machine in the second formation was losing speed at a great rate, and the fighters were pouncing on it. Something had certainly happened to the motor. The two other machines of the formation turned sharply at once and defended their comrade from the concentrated attack of the fighters as they rushed up. The Rhombus (presumably the machine in which the correspondent was flying) also turned back to the rescue, but a passing Briton sent a whole volley through its motor. The machine-gun rattled furiously after the struck machine—and now a cloud

came hissing from the right motor; the cooler and the oil supply pipe had been hit! The oil dribbled out at a disturbing rate; the machine would soon go on strike. Resolutely the pilot switched the right motor entirely off—we must go on with a single one!

Once more the Tommies’s nickelplated shot scored hits with sickening clatter against planes and fuselage. The cockpit had been riddled and, close behind the pilot’s neck, a shot coming forward through the fuselage had penerated the metal casing, come smack against the pilot’s leather helmet—and dropped helplessly from it. Thank God, it’s long passage through one metal surface after another had spent its energy. It might have been serious for us—no pilot, and only one motor in action, in the midst of a swarm of enemy fighters—but there was no time for thinking about it. If only the first formation could keep on

—the seconds seemed eternities —did they not see?—yes, they grasped the situation: the group must keep in close formation if they were not to be scattered by the fighters now roaring up again. Fighters Back Again They came past us a third and fourth time, each time received with a hail from all the machine-guns. Already the first of them had abandoned the pursuit, and we could breathe a little more freely. Perhaps they had begun to run short of spirit; the chase had carried friend and foe far out to sea. We breathed again; the worst seemed to be over. But a couple of obstinate fellows were still snapping at our second formation. The first formation turned and hurried to the aid of their comrades, while Rhombus, hampered by the failure of its right motor, flew on with all the speed its remaining motor would allow. The pilot had trimmed the craft, restoring the equilibrium upset by the falling out of the right motor. Now came the next surprise. The main tank had only a few hundred litres of spirit left, nothing like enough for the homeward flight. The precious juice was running out merrily through the shot pipe. ’The reserve tank,” wrote the observer, “must be emptied into the inner tank.” A small hand-pump, with a ridiculously small lift, close by the pilot’s seat, must do the work. Each of us had now but one thought—keep it up! “Fritz, come up here, you must carry on with the pumping,” the sergeantmajor, observer, and commander of the craft, phoned to his mechanic. We were still hundreds of kilometres from home. Fritz pumped indefatigably. The beast of a hand-pump did precious little, but it had its effect—slowly litre after litre flowed into the inner tank; the motor was getting its spirit! It was working steadily and safely. The wireless operator tirelessly took his bearings, while the observer watched the course.. By now it had grown dark. Then came a shout of joy—the home port came in sight, the flares blazing; at last, at last the grand machine was taxiing, after a perfect landing, to its resting-place.