RAIDERS DESTROYED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 February 1941, Page 6

RAIDERS DESTROYED

GOOD HUNTING BY BRITISH FIGHTERS

TWO HURRICANES CATCH DORNIER.

THREE MESSERSCHMITTS SHOT DOWN.

(British Official Wireless.* • Received This Day. Noon.)

RUGBY. February 4. Details of the destruction, announced in an Air Ministry communique, of four German aircraft during another day of hit and run raids directed at convoys, aerodromes and towns in the south-east and east of Britain, are given by the Air Ministry news service.

A Dornier 17. which bombed an East Anglian town this morning, was chased out to sea and shot down by two Hurricane pilots of a Burma squadron. Three members of the crew of four were seen swimming from the wreckage. The Hurricane pilots saw the bomber trying to sneak through clouds at 3,000 feet and closed in on either side, both pilots worrying the Dornier like terriers. They scored hits which sent him crashing into the sea. after jettisoning the rest of his bombs.

Two Spitfire pilots were (lying off the South-East Coast, at about 2,000 feet, this afternoon when they saw two Messerschmitt 109’s dive down in front. One Spitfire, piloted by a sergeant who won the D.F.M. a month ago. dived after a Messerschmitt. He got in a burst of seven seconds at one and blew it to pieces. He was able to damage the other before it sped mto clouds.

Two Messerschmitt 116's were destroyed by Hurricanes near the Thames Estuary.