DARING EXPLOITS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 January 1941, Page 8

DARING EXPLOITS

TARGETS ATTACKED FROM LOW ALTITUDES. BRITISH DAYLIGHT RAIDS. (British Official Wireless.' RUGBY. January 1. Y’esterday's daylight raids, in which only two British bombers were lost, were made by a small force Blenheim aircraft of the Bomber Command. at intervals during the morning and afternoon, made sudden sorties from clouds which hung low over the ground and attacked objectives in Germany and the Low Countries. One pilot described how he swooped down on a bridge near Emmerich, in ‘.he North-West Ruhr district, from under .500 feet, and saw n stick of bombs burst right across the bridge and bombs in the centre of the stick hit the bridge fair and square. His daring attack was made from the cover of a dense cloud, but even below the clouds visibility was by no means good and only from so low could the pilot have made certain of a direct hit. Another aircraft was flown through or over thick cloud all the way from Brest. Over'Cologne the cloud opened and gave the bomb aimer a chance which ho took at once and scored a

direct hit on a factory. As a secondary target, the Haamstcdc Aerodrome was very successfully attacked from a low level. A long stick of bombs was dropped across a building on the aerodrome and after the bombs had exploded it was seen that half of the roof had been blown away. Meanwhile two Messerschmitt 109’s were coming up from below and astern. but the British aircraft climbed into cloud and loft the enemy behind. Other targets attacked were in the Low Countries—-a German oil store at Rotterdam and docks at YTnuiden. Throughout the raids, the R.A.F. bombers were constantly fired on by anti-aircraft guns from both land and sea. At Flushing a Nazi anti-aircraft ship was bombed from under 500 feet After a stick of bombs had fallen, the ship was seen to be down by the stern and listing to port.