GERMAN CLAIMS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 August 1940, Page 5

GERMAN CLAIMS

(Received This Day, 10.20 a.m.) BERLIN, August 14

A radio message states: “Our airmen today alarmed the entire Channel coast with attacks, British pursuit planes each moment falling like burning torches. Over twenty British planes were shot down over Dover. We lost five planes. Nine balloons were destroyed near Dover.” The High Command repeats the News Agency claim that the Germans destroyed 132 British planes and adds that the German air squadrons yesterday effectively bombed part of the quay 7 installations at Wallsend, Hartlepool, Bournemouth and Plymouth, armament works at Exeter and Bristol, and big tank camps north of Gillingham. It adds: “We sank two patrol boats and two merchantmen totalling 15,000 tons. Further bombs were dropped on aerodromes at Eastchurch, Detling, Farnborough and Middlewallop, destroying numerous hangars, shelters, oil depots and shipyards, also several grounded planes. We destroyed 74 planes during air combats.

“A submarine reports the sinking of 41.011 tons of shipping, including an 11,000-ton British auxiliary cruiser. Portions of the German submarine flotilla encountered in the North Sea several British destroyers, which withdrew after brief fighting.”