London, Feb. 3.
The Royal Air Force exacted swift revenge on German bombers which today raided various points of the east and north-east coast, shooting German raiders and "very damaging, a third, which is believed to have cri. ^ed into the sea.
One bomber was shot do: n off the Tyne, and the second crashed a few miles from a Yorkshire town after a force battle with three British fighters.
The Yorkshire crash represents the first German machine to crash on English soil in the present war, and the second on British territory.
Conflicting reports are current regarding the fate of the crew of the bomber which crashed in Yorkshire, one statement saying that four of the crew were killed and one injured, and another stating that one was killed and the remainder taken to hospital.
A ship rescued the crew of the bomber shot down off the Tyne.
Trawlers Machine-Gunned The first report of the approach of the G: rman planes was that two Heinkels were machine-gunning a trawler off the Yorkshire coast. Fighters immediately went up, and a rrific air fight followed, all machines exchanging fire in a hot duel as they roared and raced across the sky. One bomber was chased in from the sea, with three fighters swooping round and diving at the target.
'An eye-witness said "the Heinkel was obviously crippled. Its engines were conking' and black smoke was pouring from its tail. It did not have an earthly chance, as the fighters were giving it all they had. The Nazi plane just missed a housetop before crashing into a feld."
Another eye-witness, describing the discovery of the wreck of the Heinkel, declared: "One member of the crew was dead, and two of the remaining three were wounded. No alarm was given, although air raids precaution services stood by in case their services were needed.
reopie on clifftops heard evidently the last burst of machinegun fire from the British fighters. They sew the fighters go off and make ^o further attacks when the raider was obviously crippled and losing The Soviet bombers in the cleat blue sky yesterday left miles-long trails of white exhaust smoke which gave the heavens an extraordinary checker-board effect. Temperatures in those high altitudes where the aeroplanes were flying was probably 50 below zero.
Red air raiders terrorized the Finnish villagers for hours at a time behind the fighting lines. The United Press correspondent motored 150 miles yesterday morning, and was delayed four times when his car was forced to seek shelter in the forest as a precaution against bombers, Occasionally he saw tiny villages, their buildings blown to bits, win debris littering the streets and crowds staring at the damage, The highways along which he travelled were often covered with fresh dirt thrown there by the explosion of a bomb nearby.—United Press,
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