ONE IN FOUR DOWN

Taranaki Daily News, 10 September 1940, Page 7

ONE IN FOUR DOWN

British Official Wireless.

» HEAVY GERMAN LOSSES EXPENSE OF BLITZKRIEG

Rugby, Sept. 8. The Air Ministry news ' service says that the Germans on Saturday night lost nearly a quarter of the raiding force against London. Thirty-five planes probably have not reached home besides the 99 known to have been destroyed. Final reports show that 11 more enemy aircraft wege destroyed by anti-aircraft ' guns during Saturday's engagements, j bringing the total shot down by fighters and anti-aircraft guns to 99. Anti-air- ] craft fire accounted for 21 of these in all. One of the British fighter pilots reported missing on Saturday has returned safely. Thirty-two machines were lost, but the pilots of nine are. safe. At the opening oi the campaign, which, according to a German high command communique, Reich-Marshal Goering ts directing personally from northern France, the German air force's loss was probably even higher. The losses given in the German communique — 94 British to 26 German— is m accordance with the familiar practice of cutting figures, which roughly reverse the actual result of air battles. A statement in the same communique that these attacks "on important military objectives of London" — in which it has been provisionally estimated by the Ministry. of Home Security that about 400 civilian men, women and children were killed and 1300 to 1400 were seriously injured— are a reprisal for those of the R.A.F. "on residential quarter- and non-military objectives in the Reich" must be supposed to represent a simiiar antithesis.