FIGHTERS DEADLY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 217, 12 September 1940, Page 7

FIGHTERS DEADLY.

SWOOP ON ENEMY. Germans Lose Quarter Of Forces Yesterday. British Official Wireless. (Reed. 2.30 p.m.) RUGBY, Sept. 11. In Tuesday night's enemy activity over London, although much damage ■was done to private properties it was less than on the previous night, and the casualties were very much less severe, according to a. Ministry of Home Security statement. Incendiary bombs caused many fires, but only one major outbreak, and all were eoon brought under control. Full reports of the casualties are not yet • available, but 18 people are known to have been killed and 280 injured in the London area.

Several additional casualties on Monday night make the total now reported in the neighbourhood of 400 killed and 1400 injured, the majority of the fatalities occurring when an elementary school in the Eaet End of London, affording temporary shelter ■ to families whose homes were destroyed, was hit and collapsed. The German Air Force again lost nearly a quarter of its raiders in a twohour air battle over London and the south-east of England on Wednesday afternoon. So fiercely did the Spitfire and Hurricane pilots attack the eneriiy formations crossing the coast that only a small proportion of the bombers succeeded in reaching the London dock area, which was apparently the chief target. Of 73 German raiders destroyed by Fighter Command pilots up to 7.30 p.m. oa* Wednesday, 43 were bombers, 19 fishter-bombers and 11 fighters. Antiaircraft batteries along the Thames are alsj believed to have-shot down eeyeral. This means that the German Air Com mand lost nearly 200 more airmen.