This is a C. Richter (publishers) Ltd postcard of a long forgotten event which took place on Thursday 17th August 1939. The postcard is entitled "Bombers over Trafalgar Square", but not RAF Bombers. These are French Bombers which took part in mock attacks against British cities in order to test the RAF's response. The following report in the Times of 18th August was written by their Aeronautical correspondent who I suspect was a serving RAF Officer.
A FRIENDLY INVASION
FRENCH BOMBERS OVER ENGLAND
RECEPTION BY RAF
From Our Aeronautical Correspondent
SAFFRON WALDEN, AUG 17
The French aircraft which came seeking targets in England today as British bombers have done lately over France, must have been a little overwhelmed by their reception. The British fighters which met them and cavorted about them seemed at least as numerous as the visitors. The French arrived and passed over England in successive waves, and at various points each wave met the reception committee almost in full force. We who accompanied the fighters were only too impressed by the crowding of the sky and were thankful for the third dimension which made it safe. The French bombers numbered about 120. In addition there were reconnaissance aircraft and fighters at about half that strength. The plan was to send the reconnaissance aircraft ahead to spy out the land and to give advice by wireless to the bombers which followed them. Lastly an escort of fighters was detailed to meet the returning raiders over London and convoy them on their homeward run. The plan afforded the British fighters a whole afternoon of good practice, in which the difficulty was less to intercept the quarry than to establish the right to deliver an attack on it. Over the South Coast soon after noon today we in the Blenheim fighters had to leave the fun of attacking to Spitfires and Hurricanes.
DAWN RAID
As the French came in they were attacked. As they advanced towards their objectives at Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, and Oxford they were again attacked. As they made their way towards the coast once more they were assailed. Their return path over London was most hotly beset of all. Everything which passed was taken as a target by the fighters, and some of the farewell blows were struck over Tonbridge by fighters which had pursued the last wave from London. The only raid which was unopposed by British aircraft was that against Liverpool in the early morning. The four-engined heavy bombers, believed to be of the Farman type, crossed the coast at Harwich at 3.15 a.m. and were over Liverpool at 6.12. Some of the searchlights caught these, and the gunners probably had some practice, but the mist in eastern and southern England caused the fighters to be kept, for safety‘s sake, on the ground. That mist, which lifted when the sun came up, was not dispersed throughout the day. It hung, a gauzy curtain, at heights up to 9,000ft., and it made the visitors much less easy to find from the air than those who watched them from the ground may have supposed. When we left some of the raiders on the east side of London this afternoon, we lost sight of them completely at four miles range. Over the sea, while we watched for them this morning, the mist was still thicker, and our flight of three aircraft opened out to serve as an aerial drag-net a mile wide, drawn over the sea approaches between Hove and Beachy Head.
AIR FULL OF FIGHTERS
There the air was full of British fighters. There were Hurricanes and Spitfires above us, Gladiators beneath us, and a few Sharks of the Coastal Command away on our flank. When the Bloch reconnaissance aircraft came dimly into sight out of the mist, they were engaged so quickly by the fighters from above that we should have had no chance of jumping their claim even if we had been closer to them. Nearly an hour later the bombers came northwards from Havre in large bodies. The twin engined Potez could not be mistaken for anything but French aircraft, but the Amiots, similar to the Blenheims, nearly led to our being attacked.
A Formation of six Spitfires, having already played havoc among all the bombers they or we could see, sat patiently above us while its leader dived condescendingly to our modest height of l2,500ft. to make sure that we belonged to the home team. Then we were all recalled while fighters farther inland took up the duty of extending a hearty welcome to the French. We were hospitably given luncheon at an aerodrome to the east of London and there, when the alarm of returning bombers was given, we had the stimulating sight of 36 Spitfires being put into the air within 12 minutes. These were some of the numerous fighters which people in London saw engaging the French visitors high in the mist.
PILOTS’ GREETING
This was simply a piece of British heartiness. The French had arranged to assemble over London. They had no targets in London to bomb. Their rendezvous was intended as a salute to London and the British fighters could have no difficulty in finding so big a body of aircraft. The fighters attacked in their dozens, sailing in behind and below the bombers, delivering a burst of fire and then circling for the next assault. They could not have been an embarrassment, for they carefully kept the prescribed distance of 300 yards and occasionally waved a greeting which the French pilots returned. The assembly of the French over London more properly resembled a procession which strung itself out a little as the visitors made for the coast. It was then that interception practice became more difficult.
By 4.30 all the French aircraft had returned safely to their bases across the Channel, and we too had ended as full and exciting a day as the fighters could expect to have at the expense of their allies. The task of both parties to the excercise could have been simpler if the air over England had been as clear as the sky above; but the work of the French raiders and of their British opponents could not have been better done, and, apart from its significance as a token of Anglo-French relations, the joint adventure has doubtless increased the mutual respect between the two air forces and helped to deepen their sense of comradeship.
