Britains Flying Battleship Fights The German Junkers

One of the most spectacular air battles early in the war was that of a lone Sunderland Flying-boat of the Coastal Command routed six of the much-vaunted German Junkers 88 high-speed bombers, shooting down two, was fought over the North Sea near the Norwegian coast on Wednesday, April 3rd 1940. The 25-ton Sunderland was faced with a 200 mile journey home after guarding a ship convoy across the North Sea, when suddenly six Junkers ,appeared. The Sunderland dived to 100 feet of the sea to be safe from attack from below. Two of the Germans followed, but the intense fire from the Sunderland's amidships guns made them climb to 1,500 feet and watch the rest of their formation carry on the battle.

One of the great Sunderland flying boats such as routed six German Junkers 88 bombers on April 3, taking off. ​

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The four Junkers attacked from the rear. The flying-boat's tail gunner waited until the first Junkers came within 100 yards of his power-operated, quadruple gun-turret and then let go with his four guns at once. The German turned swiftly and crashed to the sea in flames. Another took its place, only to get a burst from the Sunderland's four guns in its engines and was so damaged that it had to make a forced landing in Norway. The two Junkers which had been circling above attempted to bomb the Sunderland, but after seeing the fate of two of their number all four remaining German planes made off. Two hours after the battle the Sunderland, with some of its controls shot away, its captain and second pilot wounded, landed at its base. .

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The rear gunner *Above) in his four-gun power operated turret was mainly responsible for the victory, while the second pilot (Below) told the captain which way to turn to avoid danger from the German attack.​

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