SEVERE DAMAGE TO GASWORKS

Southland Times, Issue 24241, 26 September 1940, Page 7

SEVERE DAMAGE TO GASWORKS

Violent Explosions In Berlin BIG PILLAR OF FIRE IN AIR (British Official Wireless) (Received September 25, 6.30 p.m.) RUGBY, September 24. Broadcasting on Tuesday night, a 21-year-old bomber pilot of the Royal Air Force described his experiences in last night’s raids in and around Berlin. He blew up part of the gasworks in the north-east district of the city. “This is my twenty-fifth raid over Germany,” he said. “It was about the most successful of the whole 25. Our squadron had been to Berlin before, but I hadn't. They had sent me to Hamm instead and my crew was a bit fed up about that. We were told about five o’clock yesterday that the Berlin show was on and we knew it was going to be on a pretty large scale. Our particular target was the largest gasworks to the north-east of Berlin, about four or five miles from the centre of the city. There was a railway running right alongside it, a large open space to the east and a lake about a mile northeast of it. Those were our three landmarks. “As we neared Berlin the cloud beneath us closed up and over the city itself it was quite clear. In fact, conditions were pretty well ideal for night bombing. The trip out was entirely without incident. We were absolutely on the course because through gaps in the cloud we were able to pin-point ourselves on a number of places along the route. There was some gunfire round the towns to the south of the course, but nobody bothered us. The first sign of any real activity came as we approached Berlin. We got within 20 miles of it and suddenly five flares appeared in the sky. They were being dropped by other bombers that had got there before US. No sooner had that happened than up went a barrage. As we got nearer the number of flares increased. I counted 10, but as we were coming away after bombing there were well over 20. We could judge roughly the shape of the city from the gunfire around the outskirts.

OTHER FIRES IN CITY

“The flares made it light enough to pick out important features. We could see some of the others bombing and to the east there was a small chain of fires burning. I said to my navigator: ‘We will make for those and see what is to be seen there.’ As we approached we could see these, fires were just a little south of our actual target, which was a large gasworks on that side of Berlin. That was a bit of luck for us. It meant that we were able to make our tracks in the actual run up on the target. One usually has to make a dummy run first, but on this occasion we were able to bomb the first time with only a few minor corrections. At first we thought we had missed, because we saw only normal bombing bursts. About 10 seconds later there were violent explosions in the centre of the stick. I think the wireless operator noticed it first. He was looking out through the astro hatch and called out: ‘lt’s a beauty. It’s blown everything up.’ He said later that he saw a flash, then a great pillar of fire seemed to come up in the air. AH this time we had been getting a certain amount of fire from the heavy guns on the ground, but nothing to worry us much, although away through the cloud we saw another of our bombers caught in the searchlights and under very heavy fire. “As we left we could see other people bombing our fires. There were practically continuous salvos of bombs falling in various parts of the city. It was the biggest show I have ever seen. The bomb-aimer

said that he counted at least 20 fires burning. You could still see them 35 miles after which we ran into cloud again and the view was obscured. We were second back at the base on our return, but all the others returned within an hour or sc. Everyone, reported. that he had dropped his bombs.”