AIR FIGHT OVER THAMES
Many German Planes Destroyed BOMBS FALL MOSTLY IN RURAL AREAS (British Official Wireless) RUGBY, September 8. An Air Ministry and Ministry of Home Security communique stated that on Sunday morning enemy activity was negligible until shortly before midday, when a large force of enemy aircraft approached the coast north of Dover. They were promptly engaged by British fighters and anti-aircraft guns and only small formations were able to penetrate inland. These flew to' the Thames Estuary, where they were dispersed and driven off. Reports so far received show that though bombs were dropped they fell mostly in rural areas and did little damage. In Kent some, houses and a railway station were hit and a road was temporarily blocked. There was a small number of casualties, but only one person was killed. Three German bombers were shot down by anti-aircraft batteries.
It was later learned that five enemy aircraft had been brought down by fighters in addition to the three shot down by anti-aircraft fire. LOSS OF - 25 PER CENT. The Air Ministry News Service says that the Germans on Saturday night lost nearly a quarter of their raiding force against London and 35 probably did not reach home besides those known to be destroyed. One hundred and fifty enemy planes approached shortly before 4 p.m. and 200 were sighted soon afterwards. Then for 30 minutes the fiercest air battle of the war was fought from the Straits of Dover to the Thames Estuary. Large numbers of the enemy were destroyed or turned back before they reached the outskirts of London. Those who eluded the cordon of fighters before reaching the docks, which were the chief objective, had to rim the gauntlet of a curtain of gunfire. Apart from the achievements of British pilots, Polish pilots shot down 10 bombers and three fighters over the Thames Estuary. A Hurricane squadron composed of Canadian pilots had the second best score, shooting down 11. Czechoslovak pilots bagged five.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ST19400910.2.38
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Southland Times, Issue 24227, 10 September 1940, Page 7
Word count
Tapeke kupu
330AIR FIGHT OVER THAMES Southland Times, Issue 24227, 10 September 1940, Page 7
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Southland Times. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in