AIR COMBATS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 April 1940, Page 5

AIR COMBATS

OVER THE NORTH SEA GERMAN JUNKER PLANE DESTROYED. ONE BRITISH MACHINE MISSING. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.15 a.m.) RUGBY, April 2The Air Ministry has announced that R.A.F. aircraft of the Bomber Command were actively engaged in reconnaissance in the North Sea on Monday. Enemy patrol vessels were attacked with bombs and one enemy aircraft, of Junkers type, was damaged in combat. The wreckage of this aircraft was subsequently observed by a warship. One of our aircraft is missing.

GERMAN REPORT (Received This Day, 10 a.m.) BERLIN, April 2. Air reconnaissance is more intensive over the North Sea and Eastern France. • German reconnaissance machines shot down three French planes during several encounters. A number of Messerschmitts shot down a British plane over Heligoland Bight. One German reconnaissance plane failed to return.

BAPTISM OF BATTLE FEAT OF YOUNG BRITISH PILOTS. ATTACK ON HEINKEL PLANES. (Received This Day, 11.0 a.m.) LONDON. April 2. Three Hurricane pilots, in their first experience of battle, fought Heinkels twenty feet above the water of the North Sea. They put several bursts of machine-gun fire into the Heinkels and silenced the gunner of one before the Heinkels retired. One Hurricane pilot sustained a slight wound in the leg. An aeroplane believed to be German was seen early this morning flying high over the South-East Coast. Searchlights were active on both sides of the Channel and gun flashes were seen on the French coast. Later an aeroplane flew over an East Coast town and circled low over a fishing boat five miles from the coast. It fled when Royal Air Force fighters appeared.

ADMISSION AND CLAIMS AN ENEMY REPORT. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Received This Day, 10.55 a.m.) BERLIN, April 2. The Official News Agency admits that British planes attacked a group of German patrol boats, west of Sylt. It says the planes dropped twenty-five bombs, all of which missed. The Agency claims that a British bomber was shot down and disappeared in the water. The crew were unable to use their parachutes.