DRAMATIC STORIES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 84, Issue 191, 15 August 1940, Page 5

DRAMATIC STORIES

PILOTS’ COMBAT REPORTS SPITFIRES AND HURRICANES HAVE DAY OUT [ British Official Wireless. ] RUGBY, Aug. 13. Combat reports tell dramatic stories of pilots’ adventures in repelling today’s mass attacks on England. One Spitfire squadron chased a large formation of Dornier bombers right across the Channel and damaged at least five. Another Spitfire squadron began a battle against 30 Dornier bombers five miles above the Kentish coast, when the squadron-leader, a South African, sprayed three of the bombers with machine-gun bullets in quick succession. He saw pieces flying off one machine and another appeared to be on fire after his first burst. Meanwhile a pilot-officer, with his opening burst of fire, silenced the rear gunner and set fire to the fuselage of another bomber. A second pilot-officer shot down a Dornier and saw it crash on a roundabout on the main road. He was finishing off the work of another pilot who had attacked this bomber but was himself attacked by two others and forced to retire with his Spitfire damaged. He managed, however, to land his fighter safely. Another report tells of a flying-offi-cer who attacked four bombers one after the other, silencing the reargunner in two of them. He saw thick clouds of smoke pouring from the third as it dived crippled toward the sea. A Hurricane squadron engaged a tightly-packed wedge formation of 24 Dornier 215’s over the Thames Estuary. In this engagement a ser-geant-pilot, with already at least eight enemy aircraft to his credit, saw the gunner of the bomber he had attacked jump out by parachute with the bomber falling, apparently out of control, toward the water. A few minutes later a pilot of the same squadron attacked another Dornier and watched the entire crew of five bale out by parachute. While this fight was going on over the Thames, pilots from another Hurricane squadron were battling over the Sussex coast. They engaged a formation of 50 bombers composed of Dorniers, Heinkels. and Junkers flying at 5000 feet. A long way behind were 50 Messerschmitts. Iff the dog fights which followed at least one Junkers 88 was destroyed and among the probable victims of these Hurricanes’ pilots were four more Junkers, two Dorniers, a Messerschmitt 110, and a Messerschmitt 109.