BLASTED BY R.A.F.

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 54, 1 September 1943, Page 5

BLASTED BY R.A.F.

TOWNS OF -RHINELAND

THREE NIGHT OBJECTIVES (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) Rec. noon. LONDON, August 31.

Our bombers last night made a heavy and concentrated attack on the industrial area of Munchen-Gladbach and Rheydt, in the Rhineland, says an Air Ministry communique. Mosquitoes attacked objectives at Duisburg. We also attacked during the night airfields and other targets in France and the Low Countries. Twenty-eight bombers are missing.

A Berlin High Command communique said that powerful enemy air formations last night attacked western Germany and caused considerable damage and casualties. When our four-engined bombers arrived over their targets in the Rhineland all was quiet. There was no flak and no searchlights. The first sighter went down, and everything was shattered by a violent explosion. Then everything began to happen at once. The ground defences opened up and the searchlights went on. German night fighters were out in force, and they dived through the flak whenever a bomber was silhouetted above the clouds, and there were many fierce clashes. So far it is known that at least nine fighters fell to the guns of the bombers.

The offensive went on again today when Allied bombers and fighters swarmed across the Channel. American Marauders struck at a power plant and chemical works near Bethune, and a German airfield near Lille. An ammunition dump was blown sky high. Other bombers attacked two airfields. Three German fighters were destroyed by the escorting fighters. Two of our planes—one bomber and one fighter—are missing from these operations.