GREAT BATTLES

Taranaki Daily News, 17 September 1940, Page 7

GREAT BATTLES

British Official Wireless.

HARASSING OF ENEMY CHIWIED AT ALL STAGES OVERCOME BY FIGHTERS

rtugoy, aepx. ro. Great air battles to-day made it one of the most costly days for the German air force for nearly a month, 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 eoast 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. Attacks on Coast Bases. Later in the afternoon two smaller attacks were made on the Portland and Southampton areas. In every case the fighter patrols were ready to meet the enemy. The two maln attacks on 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. Canterbury. above the Medway and the Thames eastuary. Many were turned back. The survivors they fought again over London itself, squadron after squadron of fighters flying fresh into action. Finally they chased them back again and out over the Channel whence they came. A squadron of Hurricanes which destroyed nine enemy planes began the fight over the cliffs of 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 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 deflnitely shot down. Another Hurricane pilot who took part in the first stage of this attack described how the Dorniers broke formation, trying to dive for the clcud pursued by Hurricanes. When the remaining Dorniers began a fight to the coast they were no longer a formation but merely the centre of a general melee through which Spitfires and Hurricanes were flying at will, choosing whichever target pleased them.