R.A.F. ATTACK ON GERMANY

Southland Times, Issue 24229, 12 September 1940, Page 7

R.A.F. ATTACK ON GERMANY

NAVAL DOCKS AT HAMBURG

GASWORKS IN BERLIN BOMBED BIG EXPLOSIONS HEARD BY AIRMEN (British Official Wireless) RUGBY, September 10. British bombers last night continued their attacks on military objectives in Germany and enemy occupied Holland, Belgium and France, states an Air Ministry communique. Among the targets attacked were lighting installations in Berlin, shipyards at Bremen and Hamburg, docks at Kiel, Wilhelmshaven and Weimar, goods yards at Krefeld and Brussels, factories at Essen and Barnstort, rail communications and several enemy aerodromes. Other bomber forces attacked shipping and barge concentrations in Ostend, Calais, Boulogne and gun emplacements at Cap Gris Nez. Three aircraft did not return.

The night’s heaviest attack was directed against naval dockyards at Hamburg, where tons of high explosives and many incendiary bombs were dropped in the course of half an hour of almost continuous bombardment. The docks, already severely damaged in the previous night’s raid, were repeatedly straddled by sticks of heavy. calibre bombs. Fires broke out in the target area and were still visible long after the raiders had left. FIRES AT BREMEN At Bremen more great fires started as repeated hits were registered on the docks and shipbuilding yards. Direct hits were also scored on the naval station at Wilhelmshaven, where heavy bombs were clearly seen to burst on one end of the naval barracks. Another line of bombs which overshot the main dockyards burst across the minesweeper depot and straddled the pontoon harbour.

The objective in Berlin was the important Newkoln gasworks in the suburbs. Bombs were seen to burst on this target and heavy explosions occurred in the course of the attack which began about midnight and was carried out in the face of intense anti-aircraft fire.

A later raid in the early hours of the morning on the goods yards at Brussels lasted over an hour. Bombs fell across the south end of the yard, causing an immediate outbreak of fire. This was followed 10 minutes later by a terrific explosion. A few minutes later another direct hit was scored on the target, causing a second violent explosion and a fierce outbreak of fire visible 40 miles away. It was still burning strongly when the last raider left.

Other night raiding forces attacked the docks at Weimar, blast furnaces and railway sidings at Essen, and aerodromes at Diepholz, Hoya, .Celle, Cuxhaven and Schipol.

Important railway junctions at Hanover, Celle, Barnstorf and Krefeld were bombed. Two separate groups of fires at Celle caused a series of heavy explosions.

Concentrations of shipping at Ostend were heavily attacked for the third successive night. Fires and explosions were seen in all parts of the harbour, and one raider, which arrived soon after the beginning of the attack, reported that the flames had been visible for many miles before the Belgian coast was reached. RAIDS ON BOULOGNE Other bomber forces raided Bologne harbour, where several large explosions were seen in the dock area. At Calais barges in the harbour were bombed for over an hour by aircraft, which attacked in a series of steep and shallow dives. The German News Agency admits that Royal Air Force bombs fell in the Moabit district and also in North Berlin, where incendiary bombs struck houses in the main street and set fire to roofs. A building and a house were destroyed. A message from Berlin states that the alarm during the Royal Air Force’s raid lasted 45 minutes from midnight. Bombs damaged a number of apartment houses in the northern districts. The raiders did not reach the centre of the city. British bombers also attacked Westermuende’ at the mouth of the river Weser. Anti-aircraft fire drove back some planes before they reached their objectives. Others were so dazzled by the’ searchlights that they dropped their bombs in open country, according to the Germans. •

GERMAN STATEMENT OF CASUALTIES (British Official Wireless) RUGBY, September 10. The air attacks on London are presented by German wireless broadcasts as a great and exhilarating event and the terrorist quality of the raids is, by implication, constantly _ emphasized. There has been no disposition in London to minimize the serious nature of the civilian casualties caused, but the Royal Air Force will not be deflected at this from its declared purpose of confining its attacks on Germany and Ger-

man-occupied territory to military objectives. The Reich’s propaganda office today attempted in’ wireless broadcasts to demonstrate how ineffective are the British air attacks by publication of casualty figures. It declared that between May 10 and August 31 the total casualties inflicted during the British air raids on German territory were 78 persons killed and 29 gravely and 22 slightly wounded. These figures, if any confidence could be placed in Nazi statistics,, would be received here with nothing but satisfaction, as it is no part of British strategy to kill and maim civilans or to destroy their homes, and would, at the same time, manifestly serve to underline the accuracy of the aim of Royal Air Force pilots, as the scale and intensity of the attacks on military objectives in Germany during the past months by the Royal Air Force is widely known. Apart altogether from the attacks on military objectives in German-occupied territory and the bombing of troop concentrations, naval and military formations and dumps in Germany itself, the Royal Air Force during the period mentioned by the German wireless carried out 139 raids on aerodromes, 54 on aircraft works, 57 on munition works and chemical or supply depots, 139 on oil plants or depots, 13 on blast furnaces, 18 on power stations and 25 on miscellaneous targets. The comment is also made in London that casualties as slight as those given by the German wireless seem hardly to warrant the many angry fulminations about British bombing of civilian objectives, nor, indeed, the present loudly proclaimed reprisal policy.