IN BOTH ATTACK AND DEFENCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 December 1940, Page 7

IN BOTH ATTACK AND DEFENCE

Bombing Raids Continued in Bad Weather ENEMY MACHINE DESTROYED AFTER CHASE ACROSS CHANNEL DISPROPORTIONATE GERMAN LOSSES OVER WAR PERIOD British planes raided German-occupied aerodromes in Northern France in daylight on Tuesday, the 8.8. C. reports. Bad weather restricted operations at night, but raids were made on two German centres, a blast furnace at Essen and the port of Dunkirk. One British plane is missing. Enemy air activity over Britain on Tuesday was slight. In the Dover area seme damage was done and casualties caused. One enemy bombex- was chased ovex’ the Channel to the Netherlands coast and there shot down by British fighters. All the British machines returned. On Tuesday night bombs were dropped on Birmingham, but the raids did not last long. The total number of enemy planes destroyed over Britain is now 3,000, not including enemy machines destroyed by naval air forces round the coasts of Britain. Eight hundred planes have been lost in the defence of Britain, so that the ratio of enemy losses in machines is more than three to one. Since, however, 415 British pilots were saved to fly again, the enemy losses of men were 7| times as great as those of Britain. Since the war began, Britain air and ground forces have accounted for more than 6,000 enemy planes.