WAR TOPICS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 77, 30 May 1944, Page 6

WAR TOPICS

by The Beacon Watchman

THE A.A.S.F. Britain has, in this war, raised Lhe renown of. her Royal Air Force to match that of her world famous Royal Navy. Tlic achievements oi' the R.A.F. Fighter Command can only he expressed in the words used by the Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill, when speaking on August 20, 1940—■ "Never in the field of human conflict Avas so much owed bv so many to so few," The glorious history of the R.A.F. which has in fact become, the history of Britain, in this war, commenced Avlien tAvo Fighter Squadrons, the Ist and the 73rd, attached to tlic Advanced Air Striking' Force took up their headquarters in France at Rlieims, the Cathedral town in the heart of the champagne country,, in September 1939. These two Squadrons AA'ere stationed only a feAV minutes behind the Maginot Line and it fell to the lot of. the pilots aa t lio made up their flying personnel to test out their Hurricanes against everything the Germans had. As the Avorld knows, there Avas nothing the Nazis had in operation on the Western Front the Hurricanes could not deal Avitli, and the story of lioav these boys tackled the might of the Nazi Air Force will one day make great reading in our history books. ,At the start of the blitzkrieg the two Fighter Squadrons moved into Rheims, and the spectacle of lone Hurricanes flying into the middle of formations of Nazi raiders numbering from anything up to sixty or seventy was common. The most amazing part of the Avhole ston\ is that in spite of the fantaistie odds they had to fight against only four officer pilots of the original personnel of the tAvo Squadrons that Avcnt to France in September Avcrc. killed, and tAvo of these Avere killed accidentally. Yet Avhen the time came for them to evacuate, more than three hundred Nazi planes of al types had been accounted for. Of the two pilots accidentally killed, the name of "Cobber" Kain. the New Zealand ace. Avill always liA'c in the memory of the R.A.F. as the inspiration and spirit of the Fighter Command. The Maastricht Bridge In the bombing of the Maastricht Bridge, for Avhich two bomber pil-4 ots Avere aAvarded the V.C. No. 1 Fighter Squadron made the raid possible by first clearing the area of more thanlOO enemy lighters. Seven Hurricanes against 100 Nazis! Three of the pilots including the Squadron O.C. Avere shot down but landed safely, lexrving four to carry on the battle. After eight of the Nazis had been disposed of the rest. iled t just as the R.A.F. bombers arriA'ed on the. scene to bomb the bridge. For this feat, the Avhole Avorld showered praise on the R.A.F. Fighter Pilot?. who haA r e been officially described as "the Saviours of Britain."

It was out in France along the Western. Front that the R.A.F. first, came to real grips with the enemy, and first proved the superiority of British pilots and British Hurricanes over anything the Germans had. Since then, the Royal Air Force has decisively defeated the Luftwaffe. in the Battle of Britain. On August 15, 19-10, British pilots shot, down at least 181 enemy aircraft for certain, and on September 15, they shot down 185. The number of German machines actually destroyed was almost certainly substantially larger than the official figures. Over 100 enemy aircraft were, .shot down in a single day by the R.A.F. on live separate occasions during August-September 1910 the. total loss of enemy aircraft for these two months being 2,225 for the loss of (it 6 R.A.F. machines. I After beating tlie Luftwaffe in i the Battle of Britain Fighter Com-, mand moved into the offensive when the Germans turned against the Russians. British planes swept over the low countries and France, and defeated the Germans over their own airfields. More than half Germany's available lighters have been compelled by this means to keep in the West instead of on the Russian Front. Offensive Work It is recorded that one group of Fighter Command alone Hew 2.000,0(10 miles during March-April, 1912, the greater part being over the English Channel or enemy-occupied France. Over 1.000 enemy aircraft destroyed since the start of the war is the score of one Fighter Command station with its satellite airfields. Some account of escort work done can bp gained from the fact that approximately -10,000 sorties were, llown during 19-12 by aircraft of Fighter Command in the protection of convoys. R.A.F. Fighter Squadrons and anti-aircraft gunners based on Malta had. up to the end of May, 194;?, destroyed 1259 enemy aircraft ovc*

the island and surrounding area. Of this total 1000 enemy aircraft were destroyed by fighters alone. In North Africa, between November 8, 1942 and May 7, 194.3 1696 enemy aircraft were destroyed. Allied losses over the same period amounted to 657. R.A.F. Victories In all the campaigns of . North Africa, 8733 Axis aircraft were destroyed, 5450 of these being destroyed in combat, and 3283 on the ground. Over 17,800 enemy aircraft were brought down by the Royal Air Force and by Dominion and other Allied Squadrons operating with it, or by British anti-aircraft fire, between September, 1939, and the end of .Tunc 1943, over Great Britain, continental Europe, the Middle East, India and Burma. This figure includes 1004 aircraft - brought down by naval and merchant vessels or by the Fleet Air Arm, but docs not include the large numbers destroyed on the ground—3ooo in the Middle East alone. Coastal Command When British supplies were being constantly endangered and in many cases sent to the bottom, it was the Coastal Command of the R.A.F. which came to the rescue. From the very commencement of the war, this branch of the Service has done magnificent work in crushing the U-Boat menace. Aircraft of Coastal Command have flown well over 80 million miles over 25 million of these having been recorded in 1942 by aircraft mostly on submarine patrols. Since the beginning of the war, some 900 attacks have been made on U-Boats. Entailing more than 31,000 operational sorties, over 5300 convoys were giA'en air escort I*}* Coastal Command during the first three years of war. As against this, in the last two years the R.A.F. in all theatres of war has sunk or seriously damaged more than IXA1 X A million tons of enemy shipping. It is ollicially reported that Coastal Command had more aircraft in December 1942, . than the entire R.A.F. had at the start of. the Avar. Eighty per cent of these are now engaged in offensive anti-submarine sweeps, and 20 per cent on convoy duties. Bomber Command # "All through these dark winter months, the enemy has had the power to drop three or four tons of j bombs upon us for every ton we could send to Germany in return. We are arranging so th.it presently this will be rather the other way round.". (The Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill, February 9, 1941).

At the start of the Avar, when Britain was being pounded by enemy bombs without cessation, she was in .such a position as to be unable to retaliate, effectively. Since then, however, things have become, exactly the reverse. Reports state thai over 300 per cent more tons of bombs were dropped on enemy targets during 1941 than 1940. Over 54,000 tons of bombs were dropped on Germany in the first half of 1943 as compared with 37,000 tons in the whole of 1942. In a one hour raid oii Dortmund on May 23, 1943, Royal Air Force bombers dropped more than eight times the. weight of bombs dropped on Coventry in November 1940, during an all-night raid by the Germans, i.e. over 2000 tons as against' 225. During the months of. April and July, 1943, Bomber Command dropped more than. 54,500 tons of bombs on Germany and German occupied territory. I'll is is more than twice the weight of bombs which the Germans dropped on all Britain in the .whole of 1911. By the end of May J941, 100,000 tons of bombs had been discharged on Germany, while by t-he end of July of the same year the town of Even had received 12.000 tons of bombs —[lie greatest weight of bombs so far dropped on any singic town in the world. More Aerial Assaults Over 1000 bombers attacked Cologne on the night of May 30-31, the Ruhr and Essen on 1-2 June, and Bremen on June 25-2G, 1942. The British air attack against the industrial Ruhr is classed as beinii the greatest aerial assault in history. In three raids on the port of Hamburg from July IM-30th, 1943, well over 7000 tons of bombs were dropped—nearly as much as was dispersed over the whole London area by the Luftwaffe in the 11 months September, 1940 to July, 1941. Fifteen air attacks were delivered against Nrotli Italian cities bv long range. British bombers between Oct-; ober 22 and December 12. Turin was raided eight times, and 1000 tons of bombs were dropped. The. R.A.F. attack on Turin, on July 12, 1943, was the heaviest air raid ever made on Irlaiy from bases in the United Kingdom. On this raid, some 750 tons of bombs were dropped. Over 20.000.0001b of bombs were

dropped on enemy objectives in North Africa between November 8, 1942, and May 7, 1!)4."3. On one day alone (May (i) over 2500 sorties were llown and 1,250,0001]) of bombs dropped. Britain's heaviest bomb to-day, weighing nearly 4 tons, is nearly 16 times greater than the heaviest bomb used at the beginning of 1940. and is approximately double the maximum bomb-load carried in 1939. The e(Torts of the R.A.F. have saved England from being overrun and subjected to the tyranny of Nazi oppression. In the Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill's own words—■ Never in the field of human conllict was so much owed by so manv to< so few.