AIR FIGHTING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 March 1940, Page 7

AIR FIGHTING

SERIES OF BRITISH SUCCESSES NUMBER OF NAZI MACHINES DESTROYED. ENCOUNTERS IN SEVERAL AREAS. More British air successes are announced, Daventry states. The Royal Air Force, reconnoitring over the North Sea, attacked and sank a German patrol vessel. It is now known that British planes have brought down at least five enemy machines over the Western Front, while tw'o others are believed to have been destroyed. One Hurricane machine was lost, the pilot escaping by parachute. Three British planes ran into a formation of nine of the latest German machines and it is believed that they bagged three of them. It was the leader of this British formation who had to jump by parachute. A single British plane encountered lour Dorniers and three Messerschmitts and brought down one of the Dorniers. Another three British machines met twelve Messerschmitts. One R.A.F. plane managed to shoot down one and went on over German territory, where it 'shot down another Messerschmitt.

COMBAT NEAR METZ TWO ENEMY MACHINES SHOT DOWN. ONE BRITISH FIGHTER LOST. , (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Dby, 11.5 a.m.) RUGBY, March 27. There has been a marked increase in aerial activity on the Western Front. In the neighbourhood of Metz, a formation of seven enemy reconnaissance aircraft, escorted by fighters, was intercepted and engaged by an R.A.F. fighter patrol. Several combats occurred and the British fighters broke up the enemy formation and forced him to abandon his reconnaissance. One of the British patrols engaged a formation of nine enemy fighters, two of which were seen to go down in flames. One of. the British fighters was shot down, but the pilot escaped by parachute.