NEW & FASTER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 October 1940, Page 8

NEW & FASTER

BRITISH PLANES TO HARRY RAIDERS SWIFT ADVANCE PREDICTED. SPITFIRES BEING IMPROVED. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, October 24. Air Marshal Sir Philip Joubert, broadcasting, predicted a swift advance in the deadliness of British planes and early increased numbers. Spitfires and Hurricanes were being made faster and the armament was improving, but the new types on the stocks would be as great an advance on them as the Spitfires originally were on the earlier types.

The Boulton Paul Defiants would again be used for night fighting for which they were originally intended and soon might be harrying the German night-raiders. ‘■One of the most satisfactory features is the increase in our bombing effort. Recently we were able to strike in one night Berlin, the Ruhr, the invasion ports and also big industrial cities in Northern Italy. These attacks achieved important successes. “We can hope henceforth steadily to increase our pressure against Germany and Italy and by the spring when the flow of American planes has become a flood we will return to Germany with sevenfold interest all the bombing we have been forced to endure.”

The accuracy of German night bombing was certain to deteriorate when visibility was bad. Accurate shellfire was upsetting the morale of the pilots and bomb-aimers. This particularly applied at present because of the great height at which the German bombers were forced to fly. It was known that they had to operate over London at at least 14,000 feet and were forced most of the time to take violent evasive action.