NAZI ISLAND BASE BOMBED

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 301, 21 December 1939, Page 8

NAZI ISLAND BASE BOMBED

R.A.F. Compels German Fleet to Retreat to Safety WHAT HELIGOLAND FIGHT MEANT By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright (Kseeeived 20, 12.45 p.m.) LONDON, December 19. A message from Esbjerg, on the south-west coast of Denmark, say* that heavy detonations were heard on the Danish border near the German island base of Sylt, off the extreme north-west tip of Germany, at 6 a.m. It is believed that a British raid was in progress. A semi-official statement made in Berlin says that in the second British raid on the Frisian Islands, yesterday evening, bombs were dropped at random and no damage was done. The planes were driven off by gunfire, it adds. Informed circles in London regard the strenuous resistance made by the German fighters to the Royal Air Force reconnaissance over Heligoland Bight yesterday as indicating an increased desire by the German High Command to preserve their diminished fleet (says a British Official Wireless message). The Royal Air Force expedition had as its object the seekingout and destruction of enemy ships at sea, but the Germans had withdrawn their naval forces in an endeavour to protect them from discovery, leaving the passage of the Royal Air Force aircraft to be disputed by their air fighters.

in we severe ngnting wmw xouowea. the determination and skill of the Royal Air Force personnel, resulting in the destruction of 12 enemy fighters for the Joss of seven Royal Air Force bombers, demonstrated, as did last Thursday's engagement, when five out of 20 Messerschmitts were destroyed at the coat of three Royal Air Force machines in a 40-minutes fight, the superiority at present held by the Royal Air Force. It is, however, recognised that no accurate conclusion on the comparative strengths of flghterj and bombers can be obtained until large-scale operations have taken place, although the success which has so far attended Royal Air Force fighters when driving off enemy bomb raids may prove in future to be a link in the chain of evidence favourable to the Royal Air Force. That the recent loss of German warships has shaken the German confidence is to be expected, and authoritative London circles believe that the grosslvexaggerated claims made by the German Government, which more than reveals the true story of yesterday’s air battle, represent an attempt to counteract the impression made on the German public by the loss of the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee. The news of this could not be suppressed or minimised, as in the case of the less universally-known German defeats. The same interpretation Is put on the German story of an air battle of SyJ* yesterday, which in fact never took place, although it is true that unmolested Royal Air Force patrols over that and the South Frisian Islands were almost continuously carried out on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday of last week. These patrols, it seems, had the effect of keeping the German seaplanes fixed to their base, because, since they began, no enemy seaplane has approached th* British coast 9 Whatever the future may hold, it !s beyond dispute that the British sea patrols are gaining valuable experience which will be put to good use.