MOONLIGHT ATTACK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 May 1941, Page 5

MOONLIGHT ATTACK

ON ENEMY WARSHIPS ONE VESSEL LEFT LISTING. BRITISH PILOT'S ACCOUNT. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY. May 11. A moonlight patrol on Saturday night in search of enemy shipping in the North Sea is graphically described by an R.A.F. pilot. Off the Frisian Island of Texel he sighted two German naval vessels. “The night was absolutely perfect,” he said. “We had been flying toward the moon and the sea was shimmering ahead with gold and silver reflections. We turned north and noticed a wash on the water below which seemed to go on for so long that I thought it must be something to do with the tide. But my rear gunner called out that the wash was coming from two ships which he could see to starboard. “I circled round, weighing them up, and suddenly spotted their guns and recognised them as naval ships. I manoeuvred to attack and flew over the larger of the two vessels almost at deck level. As the observer called out that the bombs were gone, I saw we were just about to hit the stern wireless mast and I hauled back the control column. I just cleared the mast, but got no thanks from the rear gunner, wh*o was squashed flat in his turret by our vertical climb. “Both ships opened up, trying to scissor us between streams of light tracers. There were also white flashes of heavy anti-aircraft fire, but we got away and then ventured back to take one more look. The ship we had bombed had turned her nose to the coast and was listing and we could see that she was lower in the water.” AMERICAN PLANES INSPECTED BY BRITISH EXPERTS. SOME NOTABLE MACHINES. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY. May 11. Two hundred and fifty of Britain’s leading aircraft designers and test' pilots, looking over every type of fighter and bomber from America, paid a glowing tribute to the quality of the planes. It was the biggest, conference of experts ever held in Britain. Machines from the little Tomahawk fighter to the great four-engined Liberator bomber were lined up in three ranks. The types of machines America is now sending to Britain run into double figures. An snglish designer said to a group gathered around a Havoc night fighter: “We must have speed and altitude. The war is being fought at 40.000 feel and the engine which gives the maximum boost at that altitude is the one which is going to see, us through.” Among the aircraft on view were the Buffalo, Grumman Martlett. Curtis Mohawk and Tomahawk and the D.B.S. There were also the Maryland, the Glenn-Martin bomber and the Liberator. The designer of Britain’s largest bomber—the four-motored Stirling—looking into the fuselage of the giant American Liberator bomber, said: “A nicely finished job. The detail work is very good indeed, and we can learn something from America over that. There seems one fault with American planes. They do not put enough guns into them at present. That is being put right.” LITTLE DAMAGE EXCEPT AT ONE OR TWO POINTS. (Received This Day, 9.20 a.m.) LONDON. May 12. German night bombers extensively attacked a large number of R.A.F. aerodromes but. except at one or two points, the damage was not considerable