SOBER CONFIDENCE

Taranaki Daily News, 18 September 1940, Page 7

SOBER CONFIDENCE

British Official Wireless.

PROWESS OF AIR FORCE

Rugby, Sept. 16. Mr. Winston Churchill has sent a message to the R.A.F. fighter command on yesterday's great triumph. He says: "Yesterday eclipsed all previous records of the fighter command. Aided by a squadron of their Czech and Polish comrades. using only a sinai! proportion of their total strength and under cloud conditions of some dlfficulty. they cut to rags and tatters three separate waves of a murderous assault upon the civil population of their native land, inflicting a certain loss of 125 bombers and 50 fighters upon the enemy, to say nothlng of the 'probables' and damaged, while themselves sustaining only a loss of 12 pilots and 25 machines. These results | exceed all expectations and give just and J sober confldence in the approaching I struggle." i Slr Archibald Sinclair CAlr Secretary) passed the following message to the coastal command: "I have been asked by the War Cabinet to convey to all squadrons of the coastal command their admiration of the skill and courage with which they carried out arduous but often unspectacular tasks allotted them and of the entcrprisc and success with which in recent days they have struck at the harbour, shipping and coastal defences of the enemy."