BATTLE EVENTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 August 1940, Page 6

BATTLE EVENTS

BRITISH AIRAIAN RAMS ENEMY PLANE

WHILE FLYING UNARMED MACHINE.

RAIDER AND ATTACKER FALL INTERLOCKED. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.38 a.m.) RUGBY, August 19. Giving details. of the destruction of three more German bombers yesterday, bringing the day’s total to 144, the Air Ministry states that two were shot down by Blenheim aircraft of the Coastal Command. The third was destroyed by a sergeant-pilot of an unarmed Anson aircraft of the Training Command. Whether he intentionally rammed the raider will never be known, but the two aircraft collided and fell to the ground interlocked. Of the 144 enemy aircraft destroyed, 128 were shot down by fighters, thirteen by anti-aircraft fire, two by searchlight crews and one was brought down in •collision. Today’s enemy activities over this country have been on a minor scale. Only intermittent attacks were attempted by aircraft operating in small numbers. Damage by bombs was done to houses in an Essex town and a Norfolk village. A dock in South Wales was attacked, but the damage was confined to an oil tank, which was set on fire. Several R.A.F. aerodromes were also attacked. There were a number of casualties. Reports so far confirm that up to 8 p.m., four enemy bombers had been shot down by our fighters. The engagements were in all cases with a single enemy aircraft.