SPLENDID ANSWER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 August 1940, Page 5

SPLENDID ANSWER

TO NAZI AIR ATTACKS

RECORD OUTPUT OF PLANES. BRITISH CALM & NAZI FLURRY. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.15 a.m.) RUGBY. August 27. The “Daily Express” says the fact that aircraft workers last week turned out more bombers and fighters than ever before provides the answer to Germany's mass raids, tip and run expeditions. reconnaissance flights and solitary night bombings. Resort to screaming bombs, parachutes without Nazis, and delayed action bombs, all have been tried without disturbing the good temper and commonsense calm of the British people. The relatively unimportant military results of the enemy air attacks are being increasingly emphasised in the neutral Press by correspondents here, who have had ample opportunities of assessing them and it is becoming increasingly clear that the prominence given abroad to these dispatches is causing growing irritation in Germany. The “Voelkischer Boebachter” is indignant that: "The disastrous effect of German air raids on England” is not admitted in neutral countries and even adopts a threatening attitude. Meanwhile radio broadcasts from Germany and German-occupied territory reiterate the most extravagant claims as to damage caused in Britain.

WELL BOMBED

ITALIAN AIRCRAFT FACTORIES NUMEROUS EXPLOSIONS & FIRES. ENEMY FIGHTERS HOLD ALOOF. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.10 a.m.) RUGBY, August 27. Industrial targets in Northern Italy were again successfully attacked last night when, for the fifth time in a fortnight, bombers made the double journey over France and the Alps.

The objectives were the Societia Aeronautica d’ltalia Fiat works at Turin and the Magneto Marelli factory, which make ignition generators, at Sesto San Giovanni, near Milan. The raiders arrived over the factories just before 12.30 and in the next forty minutes they dropped some six tons of bombs. The attack on the Marelli works was made with fair visibility, there being no cloud, and one aircraft’s first stick of bombs started four fires and two large explosions. A second stick caused bright blue and white explosions and a third stick caused fourteen fires in time. The Fiat works at Turin also were set on fire early and guided later arrivals promptly to the scene. One pilot, who made a ten minutes’ attack, observed explosions for some time after he had left. Bombs from another aircraft dropped across the south-east end of the target. While the attacks were being made two Italian fighters appeared, but did not interfere with the proceedings.

RAID EVENTS DESTRUCTION OF ENEMY MACHINES. ONE CRASHES INTO WELL. (Received This Day. 10.15 a.m.) LONDON, August 27. German bombers attacked a convoy for an hour off the Scottish coast. A British fighters shot down a Dornier over a south-west of England town this afternoon. Three members of the crew were captured.

A Spitfire shot down a raider in south-west England this morning. Three members of the crew were captured unhurt.

A Messerschmitt was shot down by a Spitfire over the Isle of Wight and crashed down a well 90 feet deep, after the pilot had bailed out. He was picked up from the sea. When two bombs fell in the back garden of a house in a London suburb early this morning, the police ordered the evacuation of nearly 1000 persons from the neighbourhood, because it was believed that the bombs had not exploded. Military experts later ascertained that the bombs had exploded underground, whereupon the residents, some of whom were still wearing their night clothes, returned to their homes in the afternoon. GERMAN CLAIMS ■ (Received This Day, 10.25 a.m.) BERLIN, August 27. A communique states: "Air Force formations again attacked aerodromes and troop camps in south England, also Portsmouth harbour. “A'broadcasting station in the Scilly Isles was destroyed. “Three merchant ships, under convoy. were heavily hit with bombs northward of Fraserburgh.

“Strong bomber formations attacked the harbour of Plymouth on the night of August 26/27. also an aerodrome in Cornwall, aeroplane factories at Coventry and. near Birmingham, also harbour installations at Hull and Newcastle. Fires and explosions were caused at many places, especially at Plymouth and Hull.

“The mining of British harbours from the air continues.

“British planes bombed several parts of Germany on the night, of August 26/27. The damage sustained was unimportant. Two civilians were killed and eight were injured. “The enemy yesterday lost 70 planes. Twenty-one of ours are missing.”