According to official British statistics, enemy plane losses confirmed amount to 3069 as of August-5, clusive of the Polish campaign and of many probable planes shot down. There is only one reservation. Losses for the Western Front from Septem-her 3 to the capitulation of France are given as 2380, which includes several hundred reported by the French which the R.A.F. cannot check. A total of 336 have been shot down over Britain and its coast, 43 over Germany and German ware: 18 over the North Sea, 65 in Scand ina via, 88 by aircraft of the Fleet Air Arm or ship-borne anti-aircraft, and 139 Italian bombers and fighters in Africa and the Mediterranean.
British losses are given as follows, as of August 5: 53 over Britain and its coasts, 400 on the Western Front of which 376 came before the French capitulation, 105 over Germany and German waters, 22 over the North Sea, 66 in Scandinavia, 20 in the Italian campaign, 14 Fleet Air Arn machines in scattered actions and three in unspecified—localities—the total is 683.
Striking Tribute to R..
Nazis Don't Like Him Air casualties are the hardest Tne Prime Minister, Mr, Winston Guring one of his tours of spleen wurchill, snapped with a Tommy gun of Britain's coast defences. The Nazis now call him one of the "gangsters of the Thames." What does he look plated a time when night bombing would cease to be attractive to Marshal Goering, German Air Minister.
Scientists are studying the problem from many aspects. The realm of new inventions is also being searchingly investigated, although no entirely new weapon has emerged. Nevertheless, in the protection of London—of its vital military targets if not yet of its civilian population—there have been encouraging signs of fruitfulness.
"Box" barrage anti-aircraft fre based on a new method of prediction was the first of new night phenomena. Since then, while there has been little diminution in the fierceness of barrages, more fighters have operated. Most balloons have stayed at heights they maintained all along. Searchlights seemed to observers "erratic" in force one night, and mostly off the next.
Those responsible for the defence of London are gratified, the correspondent learns, with the marked effect these tactics have had on Nazi night-raiding operations.
Weather conditions naturally largely determined the efficacy of each aspect of night defence, or any combination of them employed, but the energy and ingenuity displayed with each weather change has at least resulted in mystifying Marshal Goering's night fliers, figures to check in any war. During the height of the offensive in the west, the Germans had many times more planes in the air each day than the Allies. But the above figures according to British sources, are striking tribute 1o superiority in material and training which was all the R.A.F. had at the start of the war to compensate for a crushing German overweight in numbers and a still-limping production programme.
Britain had the Spitfire and -the Hurricane, equal in speed respectivery to the Me 110 and Me 109. and firing a terrific concentrated burst of 160 shots a second from eight machine guns spaced along the leading edge of the wing, designed to chew any aerial target to pieces. Both had a big edge in manoeuverability over German fighters, Britain also had the power-operated, four-gun turret for its bombers, a savage defensive weapon developed by a firm whóse original experience in such matters had been gained from the design of revolving summer houses for formal English gardens. A squadron of 12 Defiant fighters, equipped with these turrets, destroyed 37 Messerschmitts on its first flight because the Germans mistook them for forward-firing Spitfires. That was May 29, when the R.A.F. accounted for 77 Gernians.
Heavy equipment included the excellent Blenheim and Wellington bombers, huge Sunderland flying boats for long sea patrols, and the fleet of Lockheed "Hudsons," the all-purpose surprise of the war, used as con-yoyer, reconnaissance plane, light bomber and even long-range fighter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.