NAZIS RECEIVE GRUELLING

Southland Times, Issue 24233, 17 September 1940, Page 5

NAZIS RECEIVE GRUELLING

RAIDERS BROKEN AND HARASSED (British Official Wireless) RUGBY, September 15. The great air battles today made it the most costly day for the German Air Force yet, states the Air Ministry News Service. During the day between 250 and 400 enemy aircraft were launched in two waves against London and the south-east coast. The great majority of the German raiders that escaped were chivvied and harassed at all stages.

The first wave came in the morning, about 11.30 a.m., when about 200 bombers and fighters began to cross the English coast in about eight or 10 different groups. They streamed in above the cliffs and beaches between Dover and Dungeness. The second attack began about 2.15 p.m., when about 10 groups of bombers and fighters totalling 150 to 200 crossed the same stretch of coast. Later in the afternoon two smaller attacks were made on the Portland and Southampton areas. In every case the fighters on patrol were ready to meet the enemy. The two main attacks in the London area received such a gruelling as never before. Spitfire and Hurricane squadrons, many of them veterans in the London defence, fought them over the Kent coast, Maidstone and Canterbury and above the Medway and the Thames Estuary. Many were turned back. The survivors were fought again over London itself by squadron after squadron of fighters flying fresh into action. Finally they were chased back again and out over the Channel from whence they came. A squadron of Hurricanes which destroyed nine enemy machines began to fight over London and ended up over the cliffs at Hastings. Another chased a group of bombers from the Thames at Hammersmith to Beachy Head, shooting down five on the way. A formation of Hurricanes which caught some of the enemy just as they were coming up the Thames handled them so roughly that one pilot thought it unlikely that any bombers would reach home, five Dorniers being definitely shot down. Another Hurricane pilot who took part in the first stage of this attack described how the Dorniers broke their formation trying to dive for a cloud, pursued by Hurricanes. When the remaining Dorniers began their flight to the coast they were no longer a formation, but merely the centre of a general melee, through which the Spitfires and Hurricanes were flying at will, choosing which ever target pleased them.

An official report states that in the afternoon raiders bombed several points in and around the London area any many in the south-east of England, causing small fires and damaging houses and industrial and municipal buildings in eastern and north-eastern London. Casualties were not numerous. A heavy bomb hit one of London’s oldest hospitals, completely wrecking the medical block and injuring a medical officer, but it missed the wards on either side. The patients had been removed to the basement earlier. There was an air raid alarm in Berlin ‘from 11.28 to 11.57 p.m. It is claimed that the raiders were driven back. A second alarm after midnight lasted half-an-hour. £130,000 SUBSCRIBED IN VICTORIA MELBOURNE, September 16. Since Thursday £130,000 has been subscribed in Victoria in aid of the victims of the bombing raids on Britain. The organizers of the fund stated today that money is still liberally pouring in. A collection taken at one group of theatres on Saturday night realized £lOOO. Suburban municipal councils are to consider a plan to add Id to the rates and give the proceeds to the fund. All the newspapers have opened funds. The Argus has already raised £15,000 and The Herald £7OOO.