ATTACK ON LORIENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 November 1940, Page 6

ATTACK ON LORIENT

MANY TONS OF BOMBS DROPPED IN SPITE OF POWERFUL DEFENCES. COASTAL COMMAND RAIDS AERODROMES. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 12.3 p.m.) RUGBY, November 8. Further details of the heavy bombardment last night of Lorient, the enemy-occupied submarine base on the Brittany coast, are given in the Air Ministry news bulletin. The target areas included a power station, naval workshops and barracks near the dry dock, shipbuilding slipways and railway approaches to the base. Many tons of bombs were dropped on these objectives and fires started were still visible when the aircraft fiad been flying for half an hour on their homeward journey. Notwithstanding powerful enemy ground defences, large concentrations of searchlights and attempts at interception by fighters, the raiding force returned without casualties. Coastal Command aircraft bombed aerodromes at Abbeville and Lannion. Buildings at the Abbeville landing ground were set on fire and at Lannion bombs fell while the flarepath was lit and enemy aircraft were taking off.

BANK CLERK D.F.C. SHOOTS DOWN THREE NAZI RAIDERS. PURSUIT OVER THAMES ESTUARY. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 12.3 p.m.) RUGBY. November 8. A Manchester bank clerk, who joined the R.A.F. Volunteer Reserve and has now won both his commission and the D.F.C. since the war began, .shot down three German raiders into the Thames Estuary yesterday. An Air Ministry news bulletin describes how fifteen Junkers dive-bomb-ers were seen by Hurricanes fleeing for France, only a hundred feet above the water; with formations of protecting fighters overhead. The Hurricanes, splitting up, destroyed one of the Junkers and four Messerschmitts. The bank clerk shot down the Junkers and two of the fighters.