R.A.F. RAID

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20109, 1 December 1939, Page 7

R.A.F. RAID

ADMISSION BY NAZIS AIR BASE DAMAGED LITTLE OPPOSITION NO BRITISH LOSSES (British Official Wireless.) Reed. 12 noon RUGBY, Nov. 30. The air raid on Tuesday on the German seaplane base at Borkum by a Royal Air Force command is declared by reports to have been one of the most audacious raids in the history of war flying. A German communique, which ungrudgingly described the raid as a daring exploit, admits that it caught t them unawares. The full story of the raid now being pieced together does not bear out the German claim that no damage was done. On the contrary, the results of the “straffing” were: Five German seaplanes were machine-gunned and two of them are believed ■ (to have been seriously damaged. Three out of four machine gun posts on the Borkum mole were probably put out of action. German coastal patrol boats were riddled with bullets.

Valuable information of the enemy’s fortifications was collected.

Returned in Darkness

Later, the fighter patrol which carried out the raid landed safely in the darkness on the home aerodrome. They returned as they went, a complete squadron of 12 twin-engined fighters piloted by six Royal Air Force regulars and six members of the auxiliary Air Force. Not one of them or any other members of the crews had been under gunfire before. They covered 500 miles in carrying out a highly-successful attack on a fortified seaplane base and, in spite of intense anti-aircraft fire, no member lof the crews—36 men—sustained a scratch, and not a single aircraft bore any trace of the gunfire to which it had been subjected. The patrol was sent out to reconnoitre the German base and attack seaplanes in the air or at their base. They emerged from a cloud after flying through a rainstorm a short distance from their targets. Before the main attack, the pilots spotted five seaplanes on the slipways, together .viih coastal patrol boats. Completely Surprised The patrol was flying in four sections of three aircraft each and immediately dived for the various objectives, spraying machine-gun bullets from heights of sometimes well below 100 ft. One of the 'fighters skimmed through a gap in the mole. The Germans were taken completely by surprise. The fighter crews coulc. see men running in all directions, while some gunners occupying a pos on top of a hangar fell to the ground.' For a while there was pandemonium. Then the anti-aircraft guns and' coastal patrol boafs got. into actior. but the standard of firing was no very high. Undisturbed by the enemy’s pom poms and machine guns, the British ' fighters pressed home their low flyin attacks. As one member of the crew said afterwards, “the Germans probable never thought they would have to hit anything so low in the air.” Their task over, the fighters reformed and flew back to England, 20. miles of the journey being covered i darkness. They were not infer cep te by German aircraft during any perio.. of the flight.