DAYLIGHT ATTACKS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 August 1941, Page 6

DAYLIGHT ATTACKS

MADE BY BRITISH FIGHTERS ENEMY PLANES DESTROYED ON GROUND. TANKER LEFT IN FLAMES. (British Official Wireless..! (Received This Day, 11.10 a.m.) RUGBY, August 6. Details of R.A.F. daylight operations on Wednesday are given in an Air Ministry communique, which states: ‘•During the day our fighters carried out a number of offensive patrols. In the course of these two enemy tankers in the Channel were attacked with cannon and machine-gun fire, and one was set on fire. Attacks were also made on enemy aircraft on the ground at an aerodrome in Cherbourg, as well as on anti-aircraft gun positions. Enemy fighters were encountered, and four of them were destroyed. One of our fighters is missing.

The fighter squadron which carried cut the attack on enemy aircraft at the Cherbourg Aerodrome was the same squadron which shot up German bombers and fighters at the same aerodrome on Tuesday. The first R.A.F. pilot over the target saw the burnt-out shell of a Junkers plane which he had fired at on Tuesday, and several other bombers also wrecked. Ten or twelve Messerschmitt 109’s lined up on the boundary of the aerodrome were machine-gunned and shot at with cannon. Many were hit. The squadron leader then fired a burst into one of the Junkers 87's wrecked in Tuesday’s raid, in order, as he afterwards said, to make assurance doubly sure. As he left the aerodrome he looked back and saw a column of smoke rising from it. Another fighter of the squadron arrived as a gunpost was firing at the same squadron leader. He silenced it, and then saw one of the undamaged Messerschmitt 109’s taking off. He gave it a burst, and it went up in flames. On its way back the squadron attacked two oil tankers with cannon and machine-gun fire, and left one with smoke rising from it. Later a further attack was made on the tanker, and two escorting Messerschmitt 109’s were destroyed. Other attacks made during the day by Fighter Command pilots included the hitting of an E-boat and the machinegunning of a coastal radio station.