Waves of German Stuka dive bombers, hidden by smoke screens spread across the sky by naval base and Royal Air Force aero-Jdromes yesterday. Italian pilots were reported to have joined in the massive aerial. offensive.
Despite the new German tactics of] laying down aerial smoke screens, British planes and anti-aircraft guns pierced the smoke barrage and brought down 39 more German planes uring fierce fighting that continued all day yesterday, boosting the total bag during the past 48 hours to 99) German planes, according to an Air Ministry "announcement. The total (German planes brought down since June 18 was brought to 800, accord-to the Ale Ministry.
'Only nine British fighters were lost while' beating off yesterday's attacks, Which were the Mercest of any Ger man raids thus far, the Air Ministry ald. Ports, aerodromes, dockyards and fnland points were the objectives of the German raiders.
(Berlin claimed last night that 71 British planes were shot down in the Portsmouth attack while 19 German aircraft were said to have been lost. The Berlin report said that during the 48-hour period 164 British planes were destroyed.)
Striking with intensified fury along a 250-mile coastal front from the Thames Estuary to the Portsmouth region, more than 400 German bombers and fighter planes, in waves of 70 planes each, roared over Portsmouth, acrodromes in Kent and Sussex and convoys in the English Channel. They also attacked protec five balloon barrages along the coast.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.