AIR ACTIVITY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 September 1941, Page 6

AIR ACTIVITY

SKY FULL OF BRITISH PLANES CROSSING THE SOUTHERN COAST. — ATTACKS ON CHANNEL PORTS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.35 a.m.) RUGBY August 31. Air activity has been intense ever the sea coast today, the sky being full of planes. In the second air sweep of the day—the earlier one had been at dawn—Spitfires and Hurricanes were everywhere. They skimmed over roof tops, while, stepped up above them, were three more layers of aircraft, the highest up no more than glistening white specks'! Rumblings felt on the British coast during the morning seemed to indicate that the R.A.F. had a busy time over ' the Channel ports and their immediate hinterland. The R.A.F. has virtually run a shuttle service to the Continent ever since daylight this morning and is still doing so. This afternoon activity was maintained and flights of half a dozen fighters at a time passed to and fro in an almost endless stream. It was an amazing sight, as , these fighters hurtled over the sea, to come back half an hour later, skimming the water, as they came in from the east, before lifting over the houses. The sky has been so alive with fighters that people have not had a chance to see what bombers were flying above them. Scores of bombers and fighters passed over the East Coast shortly before one this afternoon. They appeared to be flying in two different directions —due east and south-west. NIOHT OFFENSIVE LIMITED BY BAD WEATHER. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.42 a.m.) RUGBY, August 31. An Air Ministry communique states: “Weather conditions last night were unfavourable for offensive operations, which therefore were on a very small scale. Bomber Command aircraft attacked docks at Cherbourg and aircraft of the Coastal Command bombed ground defences near the Dutch coast-. Two aircraft of the Coastal Command are missing.”