“ROUTINE JOB”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 October 1941, Page 6

“ROUTINE JOB”

ACCORDING TO NAVAL AIR PILOTS devastating attack ON CONVOY. BIG ENEMY MERCHANTMEN LEFT SINKING. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.53 a.m.) RUGBY. October 8. Further details of the attack by naval aircraft on an enemy convoy in the Mediterranean on October 5 are contained in an Air Ministry bulletin. The convoy consisted cf four merchantmen of between B,COO and 10,000 tons and two between 4,000 and 6,000 tons. When the naval aircraft went in to the attack, the ships were in two columns, each of three, with five destroyers disposed around them. The attack was unexpected and devastating. The first two naval aircraft swept, in and picked off the rear vessels cf the port and starboard columns, and were out of effective range before the Italian guns opened fire. Behind them they left the largest, ship of the convoy listing heavily , and belching black smoke and another, a 6,000 tonner, with her stern under water, listing heavily and the crew abandoning ship and pulling towards one of the destroyers. Panic activity started among the escort vessels, which opened fire and began to lay a belated smoke screen, which was caught by a strong wind and dispersed. Meanwhile, the remainder of the formation was among the stricken convoy. The leader straddled one of the largest ships with a stick of bombs, probably damaging it. Another pilot attacked the middle vessel of the starboard column, and it swung to port and stopped. . When the aircraft left, two vessels were in a sinking condition and another was damaged. This successful operation was described by the pilots as “a routine job, without any particular feature except that the enemy destroyers succeeded in bouncing shells off one another's decks."