Pictures

The Manchester Guardian sums up the weekend's raids above (5). Eighty-five enemy aircraft were shot down on Saturday, and another twenty-five yesterday. British losses on those days were thirty-seven and fifteen, respectively. The headlines make for reassuring reading: 'Raiders baffled in attacks on aerodromes', 'Raiders scattered on way to London', 'Nazis lose 700 airmen in a week'. And 'More bombs on Berlin'. On behalf of the War Cabinet, Churchill has written a letter to the Commander-in-Chief of Bomber Command to congratulate his force on its work in bombing Germany and Italy. He made special mention of the fact that on the first raids on Berlin, 'the great majority of pilots brought their bombs home, rather than loose them under weather conditions which made it difficult to hit the precise military objectives in their orders'.

This is in marked contrast with the wanton cruelty exhibited by the German flyers who, for example, have vented their spite upon the defenceless watering place and town of Ramsgate in which nearly a thousand dwellings and shops, mostly of a modest character, have been wrecked.

Churchill thinks the accurate marksmanship of Bomber Command is a sign that the 'command of the air' is slowly being 'wrested from the Nazi criminals who hoped by this means to terrorise and dominate European civilisation'.
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The daylight air battles over the south of England intensified yesterday, as these headlines from the Manchester Guardian (5) show. The RAF shot down 24 enemy aircraft while losing 12 of its own (4 of the pilots are safe). Churchill visited the south-east coast and saw some of the action. He was driven out from Dover to inspect the site of one crashed fighter:

An officer saluted as the Premier drove up. "Is it one of theirs or one of ours?" asked Mr Churchill, indicating the still-burning wreckage. "One of theirs, sir," replied the officer. "Good," exclaimed Mr. Churchill. "That's another one off the list."

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Today we're reading The Times. London was again menaced by German bombers last night, though it seems bombs fell only on the 'outskirts' (4), in particular 'one bomb' hit 'a building in the outskirts of London'. Folkestone was much harder hit by a daytime raid in which 'German bombers swooped out of the sun [...] people saw the bombs leaving the racks as the raiders dived to within a few hundred feet of the roof tops'. Three people were killed, laundry workers all. British fighters chased the bombers ('believed to be Messerschmitt Jaguar bomber-fighters') out over the Channel, claiming three.
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These are the headlines from the Observer (5). Yesterday was another good day for the RAF, which on Air Ministry figures shot down 45 German aircraft with 10 of its own missing. There were 'Battles all day long':

Until mid afternoon the attacks were concentrated on aerodromes in East Kent. Then large numbers of German bombers and fighters were flung into two new mass raids.

While some of them were attacking aerodromes almost up to the outskirts of London, others were raiding the Portsmouth area.

The Portsmouth raiders were largely turned back by 'an intensive A.A. barrage' assisted by fighters. Casualties 'are believed to be relatively few in view of the number of bombs dropped', though a cinema was hit during a showing, burying some patrons in rubble.
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