SUPERIORITY OF R.A.F.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 260, 1 October 1940, Page 7

SUPERIORITY OF R.A.F.

NAZI RAIDERS THRASHED

OVER 1000 LOST LAST MONTH

(United Press Association. —Copyright.—Pec. 9.15 a.m.)

British Official Wireless.)

RUGBY, Sept. 30

During September, which was regarded byhigh officials as a critical month, the R.A.F'. destroyed over 1000 German aircraft, with the loss of only 286 of our own fighters.

y The past month has further demonstrated the inability of enemy bombers, even with huge escorts, to overcome the defence of the R.A.F. planes in daylight raids, and is regarded by experts as establishing the ineffectiveness of night bombing owing to the fact that many of the raiding pilots lose their way.

FAULTY NAVIGATION,

An examination of the list, of places Upon which bombs have been dropped during the past few nights suggests that at least half of them were dropped by pilots who were completely unaware of the localities over which they were flying—places remote from any objective which the Germans could claim to have any military or semi-military character. In these cases, says the Daily Telegraph’s air correspondent, “it was obviously not a question of missing the legitimate targets by half a mile or so through inaccurate bomb-laying. Either the enemy had mistaken the route assigned to him, or, knowing he had lost his way, was bombing promiscuously.” Some unusual disparities between one. day and another in the proportion of our own losses to the enemy’s during last week’s air war are discussed •by the Telegraph. Thus, whereas on Friday we destroyed 133 of the enemy’s machines at the. cost of only 34 of our own, Saturday’s communique announced the loss of seven British fighters against only six enemy machines. A few days earlier the losses on both sides were equal at eleven. TRIBUTE TO COMMUNIQUES. It will be regarded as a further testimony to the veracity of the Air Ministry’s communiques that they do not hesitate to admit relatively unfavourable figures in contrast to the Nazis’ practice of reversing the figures 19 days out of 20 when they are heavily adverse to themselves, says the Telegraph. There is no cause for disquiet from the rare occasions when the R.A.F. fails to destroy three or four times as many of the enemy’s machines as it loses itself. The reason for the .two had days last week was that- the enemy sent over only fighters unaccompanied by bombers, hoping to lure our fighters into a combat with his own side possessing a numerical superiority. ! The German losses of aircraft in the attacks on Britain vary; so greatly from the enormous figures on the days when the Luftwaffe comes over in force to the smaller figures when only a few enemy aircraft make reconnaissance flights that periodic totalling is necessary in order to. gain an idea of the punishment the German air force is taking from the R.A.F. During the week ending midnight on September 28 the confirmed German aircraft losses were 222 machines in the battles over Britain, apart from machines , damaged and believed destroyed whose loss could not definitely be confirmed bv the careful methods of checking claims employed by the Air Ministry. The R.A.F. lost 69 planes in the same period, but 37 pilots were saved. It is estimated that the German crew losses from aeroplanes whose losses confirmed alone are not less than 550.