BRITISH BOMBERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 March 1940, Page 5

BRITISH BOMBERS

EXTENDED FLIGHTS OVER GERMANY VISITS TO PRINCIPAL CITIES. BATTERIES OF SEARCHLIGHTS ENCOUNTERED. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.30 a.m.) RUGBY, March 7. One. of the most intensive of the series of night reconnaissance flights over Germany since the outbreak of war was carried out last night and in the early hours of this morning by aircraft, of the Bomber Command. Most of the principal cities and seaports of North-West Germany, including Bremen, Hanover, Hamburg, Wilhelmshaven and Cuxhaven, were visited, while other aircraft maintained the Royal Air Force’s customary security patrol over the island bases of the German minelaying seaplanes. Intensive searchlight activity marked the passage of the reconnaissance aircraft over Germany. Beams of a bluish hue were most frequently encountered. and on two occasions our aircraft were held for nearly half a minute in the beams of a number of converged lights. Near Cuxhaven a battery of twenty or thirty searchlights came into action, but was quickly evaded. Over Bremen, anti-aircraft guns opened a heavy fire and bursts of orange-coloured flame marked the course of a British aircraft as it flew high above the city. Two aircraft flying with navigation lights on at a height of ten thousand feet were also seen when this aircraft was over Heligoland Bight, but no attempt was made to attack. The weather conditions were generally favourable for reconnaissance flights, though a temperature of minus thirty degrees Centigrade was recorded by one aircraft, and ice-form-ing conditions were encountered over the North Sea. All our aircraft returned safely, after covering an aggregate distance of over ten thousand miles.