MORE FAILURES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 September 1940, Page 5

MORE FAILURES

IN ATTEMPTS TO APPROACH LONDON

GUNS DISCOURAGE RAIDERS. NINE PLANES DESTROYED BY SPITFIRES. (British Official Wireless.) i (Received This' Day, 10.10 a.m.) i RUGBY, September 2. Over 100 German bombers and fighters tried to break through the Thames Esutary defences between 8 and 9 o’clock this morning. Spitfire and Hurricane pilots, waiting for the raiders, once again saw the discouraging effect of the anti-aircraft fire on the enemy. A Spitfire squadron reported that the bomber formation, heading up the river, was turned back by an intense anti-aircraft barrage, while our fighters themselves, says an Air Ministry news bulletin, destroyed nine of the enemy during this raid. Four of our fighters are missing, but one pilot jumped to safety by a parachute. Some of the raiders came in by the estuary while othere crossed the south Kent coast. The first to attack them was a Hurricane squadron, which saw 29 Dornier bombers coming up the Estuary, at 15,000 feet, with Messerschmitt 110 fighter bombers stepped up above them to 20,000 feet. Before the Messerschmitts could arrive one of the bombers had gone, to crash on the aerodrome it had been sent to attack. The Spitfires who watched the antiaircraft guns driving back the bombers’ formation went after the protecting Messerschmitt 109’s. One crashed and another burst into flames. Other Spitfires, not waiting for the enemy to arrive, went over to France from the Kent coast and destroyed three Messerschmitt 109’s. Returning, one Spitfire became separated from its squadran, and seeing 50 Dornier 17’s and Messerschmitt 110’s, flying closely packed, he dived at an outside fighterbomber, and saw his bullets strike home.