Evening star., 1940-08-17
London
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-SBHS VII
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other loosed a salvo at a large Nazi
anti aircraft battery.
These are samples of the extreme
care the r. A. F. takes TO Identify
its targets and thus avoid all danger
of bombing non military obJectlves,
the ministry explained
Is Nazi Planes Claimed.
At the same time the ministry re-
vised upward its figures of German
planes destroyed. reporting 75-not
7l-Nazi raiders had been shot down
during yesterdays very much
smaller" scale attacks and insisting
that a new check of Tuesdays air
battles showed 180 invading aircraft
certainly destroyed" The previous
figure for Thursday was 1859.
Today's daylight raids began with
dogfights over an inland town in
the Southeast, where British fighters
shot down one Messerschmitt and
captured its pilot.
The new squadrons were sighted
shortly after the surprise explosion
in a Southwestern London suburb
of delayed-action German bombs,
which the British said were dropped
last night by Nazi warplanes in
their smashing attack at both sides
of the Thames Estuary.
A dozen persons visiting the scene
of the bombardment narrowly es-
capped injury and others were sent
scurrying to air raid shelters by the
explosions. They had moved away
from the site bare minute be-
fore the bombs went off
There were two more bomb ex-
plosions later in the day. One DAM
aged several houses and the other
exploded near a factory.
Night Raids on Wales.
Night operations by the Nazi cir
force-following up Fridays large
scale daylight attacks on widespread
areas-were concentrated mainly on
Wales, where number OF casualties
and at least one death were reported
The Air Ministry meanwhile
scaled down its estimate of the
number of German planes engaged
in yesterdays operations, saying
there were not as many as the re-
ported 1000 which took part in
Thursdays mass assaults. Earlier
unofiicial reports had indicated that
as many as $500 might have taken
part.
Two women and a man were
taken to a hospital when two bombs
struck in the main square of
Welsh town. Houses were dam
aged, the windows of three hotels
were shattered, and fire brigade
turned out to keep in check blaze
which broke out in the center of the
town.
Whistling Bombs Used.
Two whistling bombs crashed in
the middle of another town, dam
aging property and causing severa,
casualties. One woman said:
1T Is remarkable that some
people weren't killed. One woman
fell from her bedroom into the
room below. She was not seriously
injured"
German planes also were reported
over Southwest and Southeast Eng
land during the night, while single
raider dropped nine bombs on q
southwest coast town. Searchlights
failed to pick up the plane in the
moonlight.
The bombs fell in a residential
district, the shattering explosions
shaking the town out of its sleep
but while a number of houses were
damaged there were no casualties.
Britain, against whom Germany is
directing the greatest air attack in
history, claimed continued mastery
of her skies for her fighter pilots
and her defense gunners on the
ground.
Fewer Fighters Sent Over.
She declared her resistance was
so fierce it had compelled the Ger
man Air Force to resort to q new
technique in its daily assaults.
The Nazi air force has lost almost
80 planes q day since the six success
sive days of major attacks began
last Sunday, the British said. That
toll has been so damaging, they
added, that the raiders, once past
the coast, no longer can concentrate
their bombardments on specific OBJ
jectives, but must deploy over a wide
area.
Employing a smaller number of
planes than on Thursday, when over
1000 were believed engaged, the
Germans yesterday bomber many
places in many counties, with two
of the chief attacks directed at the
Thames Estuary. Both were turned
back before the raiders could strike
at London itself, although the sec
ond wave dropped explosives in the
southwestern suburbs.
Residential" Town Hit.
An Official statement said first re-
ports indicated the number of per-
sons killed was small despite wide
spread damage. The casualties in
cluded some of the personnel at r.
A. F. airdromes, it was acknowledged.
British censorship banned
publication of any total of casual
ties, which the government now
releases only monthly. However,
an Associated Press correspondent
who toured the bombed south
western area told Of seeing l3