BOMBING OF SICILY
(8.0.W.) RUGBY, August 30. After months of heroic defence, in the face of constant pounding by enemy aircraft, Malta has turned the tables on the Axis and is proving more of a troublesome thorn in its side than ever. In 24 hours the island has destroyed 14 enemy aircraft for certain and has done much material damage to the Axis. On Wednesday night, says the Air Ministry News Service, the enemy sent over a small number of bombers. They did no military damage and two of them were shot down and another was probably destroyed. That night Royal Air Force fighters attacked a seaplane base in Sicily. A seaplane was shot down and a motor vessel shot up. . The enemy attempted a high-flying fighter sweep near Malta on Thursday morning, but Snitfires met and dispersed them and damaged two. That afternoon Spitfires swarmed across the Sicilian coast, almost at ground level, raking with their cannon and machineguns hangars, huts, barracks, store buildings and railway water tanks. Fitters working on Italian aircraft were killed and soldiers shot up. Hostile aircraft were also attacked in the air and in the act of taking off. The aerodromes were enveloped in dense smoke when the aircraft left, after having destroyed four bombers and two fighters in the air as well as three bombers and one fighter on the ground. Many others were probably destroyed or damaged. ■On the way home three schooners were shot up. At dusk an Axis convoy was attacked with torpedoes and bombs. A medium-sized merchant vessel was hit squarely amidships and sunk and an escorting destroyer was shot up and left smoking. An Italian bomber which attempted to interfere was shot down and a fighter was damaged. Bombers made a second attack on Sicily on Thursday night. They scored hits on two aerodromes and hangars, while cars and a large building with all the lights on were shot up. During the whole of these activities Malta lost only three fighters.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ST19420901.2.52
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Southland Times, Issue 24837, 1 September 1942, Page 5
Word count
Tapeke kupu
333BOMBING OF SICILY Southland Times, Issue 24837, 1 September 1942, Page 5
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.