NAZI ARMADAS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 August 1940, Page 5

NAZI ARMADAS

SMASHED BY SPITFIRES & HURRICANES IN ATTACKS ON LONDON. LIMITED RESULTS ACHIEVED AT HEAVY COST. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, August 19. German air onslaughts against Britain yesterday were concentrated in three mass raids with huge bombers and fighters appearing over the English Channel in wedge formation. They wrought some havoc, but they returned in disorder with the formations severely thinned by the British Spitfires and Hurricanes.

The “Daily Telegraph” says it is authorititavely states that Germany’s recent heavy casualties have so disorganised the German Air Force that it has necessitated drawing upon reserves.

The air raids on London reached proportions comparable with the attacks that were launched last week against the coastal towns. Several armadas of German bombers and fighters, one totalling 200. were intercepted before reaching the London area, but two smaller thrusts got through and caused widespread superficial damage. There were a number of casualties, though most of them were slight, and the raiders considerably damaged a number of houses.

Later a force of 42 planes followed the Thames in spite of tremendous anti-aircraft fire and penetrated deep enough to give the metropolis its second alarm for the day. One hundred bombers were counted heading for London in the evening, but Spitfires cut up the formation some distance away and only 53 of the formation, flying haphazardly,' were counted returning over the coast.

Bombs fell in the main shopping centre of one district on the outskirts of London. The raiders swooped low here and attacked a railway station and machine-gunned civilians going to their shelters. One squadron unloaded its bombs on a row of semi-detached bungalows when • British fighters got close. One bomb demolished half a big dairy depot. A London commentator, remarking that the Air Ministry’s reports mentioned casualties here and there and some damage to private property and to R.A.F. aerodromes, said that the effect of the afternoon’s raids was slight. The main objective seemed to be London. “There is no doubt that in two big raids today the Germans were determined to get through to London,” he said. “They failed. In the centre of the city not one explosion was heard, and not one aeroplane was seen.”

GERMAN CLAIMS BERLIN, August 19. The German High Command claims to have destroyed 138 Royal Air Force, planes yesterday, and says that 34 German machines are missing. RAID ALAR/M SWISS GUNS IN ACTION. LONDON. August 18. Berne (Switzerland) reports that anti-aircraft guns went into action after a raid alarm. Basle, Zurich and Geneva also had alarms. A Rome message states that Berne’s raid alarm was due to a formation of British planes flying southward. ITALIAN PLANES TWO HUNDRED DESTROYED IN MIDDLE EAST. R.A.F. “BAG” TO DATE. R.A.r. planes in the Middle East have so far destroyed nearly 200 Italian planes.