DAYLIGHT BOMBING

Evening Star, Issue 24329, 19 October 1942, Page 3

DAYLIGHT BOMBING

ARMAMENT WORKS ATTACKED LARGE FORGE Of LANCASTERS K LONDON, October 18. A large force of unescorted Lancasters at dusk last night made for the first time a concentrated bombing attack lasting 20 minutes on tho huge arms works of Lo Creuzot, 170 miles south-east of Paris. This was the Bomber Command’s heaviest daylight raid of the war, and the longest by such a large force of Lancasters since the daylight raid on Augsberg on April 17. The Air Ministry says preliminary reports show that the operation was highly successful. One Lancaster has not returned. The Le Creuzot arms works cover 287 acres, and a/e the largest and most important of the international Schneider cartel. They have been making Ger-man-pattern guns of very heavy calibre and also locomotives, machine tools, and armour plate. The works are comparable with Krupps in size and importance, and the Germans, during the battle for France, avoided' bombing them.

Le Creuzot, the Air Ministry adds, has no- features or landmarks for night navigation, and as the town is small and congested a night attack would have inflicted great losses on the French civilian papulation.

GERMAN ADMiSSIGN ISLAND REINFORCED JAPS IN THE ALEUTIANS (Rec. 11.20 a.m.) NEW YORK, Oct. 18. Reconnaissance planes have disclosed that the Japanese are reinforcing the Kiska garrison and building new installations on the south side of the island, says the Associated Press correspondent at Alaska headquarters. The Japanese probably are transferring troops to Kiska from the other Aleutian Islands >which were found unfit for bases.

NINETY-FOUR BOMBERS ONLY ONE LOST (British Official Wireless.) (Rec. 10.45 a.m.) RUGBY, Oct. 18. Fuller reports of yesterday’s Lancaster raid on the Schneider le Creusot Works announced by the Air Ministry reveal that the first squadron over the target was led by Wing-commander L. O. Slee.

All the bombing was completed within seven minutes, and in that time a great weight of bombs was dropped. Many fires broke out, and shortly after the attack there was a large explosion. One formation bombed tlie electrical transformer station nearby, which supplies power to the Schneider works. The only aircraft missing of the 94 planes engaged in the operation was lost in this attack.

One Lancaster was attacked by three Arando float planes and shot two of them down into the sen.

An enemy bomber was destroyed by our fighters off the French coast to-day.

BOMBING " EXTRAORDINARILY HEAVY "

LONDON, October 17. A Luftwaffe spokesman. Major Waifgang Blei, broadcasting from the Berlin radio, said: “The damage the enemy is doing by bombing in Germany cannot be denied. It is extraordinarily heavy, but compared with the total property the_ damage is smaller than the enemy thinks. The damage.would be far greater if the enemy directed his attacks against the military front. .Germany’s labour power is being neither destroyed nor disturbed: The enemy cannot reach German labour power, and therefore he cannot win the war, which can be won only on the military field. The- Luftwaffe can answer every British blow with harder blows, which the British, for all their tenacity, will be unable to endure.”

HEDGE-HOPPED ACROSS FRANCE

LITTLE ANTI-AIRCRAFT FIRE

(British Official Wireless.)

(Rec. 12.50 p.m.) RUGBY, Oct. 18. Further describing Saturday’s daylight raid on Le Creuzot, the Air Ministry news service says the majority of the great force of Lancasters hedgehopped across France and climbed to the attack. The main target was bombed from between 4,000 ft and 6,000 ft. A smajl force was detached to bomb the transformer works, which it did from 500 ft with great effect. • The only one lost of the 94 Lancasters was seen to crash here beside the target. Little anti-aircraft fire was encountered.

A CHRISTMAS MAIL TO BE TRANSMITTED FROM JAPANESEOCCUPIED china" (Rec. 10.30 a.m.) LONDON, Oct. 19. The Tokio radio announced that Japan had agreed to accept and transmit from Japanese-occupied China a Christmas mail for all countries, including those at war and those which had broken off relations with Japan. The International Red Cross Committee announced that 33,750 messages from Shanghai would be transmitted to 56 countries, including Britain. New Zealand, Australia, India, Canada, the United States, and Germany.

AFTER THE WAR PROBLEMS TO BE FACED (British Official Wireless.) (Rec. 10.30 a.m.) RUGBY, Oct. 18. “ The story of sabotage in the occupied countries is a story of magnificent heroism,” declared Mr Arthur Greenwood, speaking at Birmingham cent heroism—declared •Mr Arthur Greenwood, speaking at Birmingham to-day. Ho added that help for those countries would be needed on a huge scale after the war, and together we would have to make certain that the same tragedy did not occur in Europe again. Germany would have to he deprived of the power to obtain war potential by rationing on a peacetime basis. They must not bo allowed to iput their raw materials into civil aircraft which, in the twinkling of an eye, could be turned into heavy bombers.

Mr Greenwood declared that all our commitments must be fulfilled after the war so far as was humanly possible. He gave a warning against thinking too lightly of the coming months. It was going to be a pretty difficult struggle—although there could be only one end to the war.