VIOLENT COMBATS
NAZIS BEATEN OFF
WING COMMANDER'S STORY
(Rec. 11 a.m.)
RUGBY, May 22,
The proportion of six R.A.F. fighters lost to five German planes in yesterday's raid on Bethune provides a striking comparison with the battle over Britain last autumn, when, despite the concentration of the whole Luftwaffe armada, the German losses uniformly ranged from three-fold to five- and six-fold those of the R.A.F., again proving the greatly superior British quality of both pilots and machines.
The violence of yesterday's action can be judged from the description by the wing commander who led the squadrons escorting the bombers. He said: "I know that when we used to attack fighter escorts in the Battle of Britain it almost invariably ended in the enemy bombers being left to the mercy of our fighters, but today we managed to drive away the Me 109's, and keep in company with our bomber's.
"We saw one lot of enemy fighters climbing up to attack our bombers and another lot of about nine dived down on the rear section while more attacked us. At one time we had to fight with ten Messerschmitts and three of them were shot down. A Czech sergeant pilot got one. The Germans continued to make halfhearted attacks on us all the way back to England."—B.O.W.
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Bibliographic details
Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 120, 23 May 1941, Page 7
Word Count
216VIOLENT COMBATS Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 120, 23 May 1941, Page 7
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