BERLIN RAID

Taranaki Daily News, 13 September 1940, Page 7

BERLIN RAID

By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.

RAIL YARDS HIT BOMB IN TIERGARTEN ATTACK ON AERODROME

Rec. 12.30 a.m. London, Sept. 12. British planes bombed a railway yard near Potsdam, the Anhalter station, the Berlin airport, and an anti-aircraft battery in the Tiergarten, Berlin's Hyde Park, last night. According to the Air Ministry's communique the raiding planes were over Berlin at 11.30 p.m. and at three minutes before midnight the first bombs were dropped on a large railway yard just south of the Potsdam railway station. The yard was straddled with a stick of heavy calibre bombs, followed by incendiary bombs. At 12.5 a.m. another raider, facing a curtain of fierce anti-aircraft fire, bombed the Anhalter station. ln a series of runs over the target. the plane dropped bombs on buildings and tracks. Other aircraft pressed home the attack after dropping parachute flares to light the target, and repeated salvoes were seen to hit the goods yard. One plane hit an anti-aircraft gun in the Tiergarten and another turned south and bombed the Tempelhof aerodrome, Berlin's principal airport. . One British aircraft was hit, but all returned safely to their base. German Armissions. The Germans say the Royal Air Force bombed Berlin for 92 minutes last night. Many incendiary bombs were dropped and a fire was caused in one factory. Some bombs fell in the Tiergarten. A German claim that a curtain of antiaircraft fire turned back the raiders before they reached the centre of the city was difficult to reconcile with these admissions. The British were apparently not content with attacking Berlin, because two towns in north-west Germany were raided last night, says the German official news agency. As had occurred in previous raids on Berlin, a large number of bombs was dropped on residential and business quarters, inflicting slight damage, though causing a number of civilian deaths and serious injuries. A tirnberyard was set on fire and a nuniber of workmen's dwellings was destroyed. While London was receiving its fourth nightly dose of German air brutality, Berlin, according to neutral correspondents, was given a strong taste of its own medicine when the Royal Air Force penetrated the capital's defences and bombed central Berlin. Bomb on Reichstag. Besides the heavy attack on the important Potsdam railway station, a tliennite bomb crashed through the roof of the Reichstag and smouldered in a hall before it was extinguished. The Reichstag is not being used at present and is still undergoing reconstruction after the 1933 fire. Other bombs fell in this district, which conlains Government offices. Incendiaries peppered the area around the United States Embassy, near which a 500-pound-er fell. A high explosive was dropped near the Ministry of the Interior, smashing ground floor windows in buildings occupied by an American news service. A heavy bomb landed in the centre of the Avenue of Splendour, which is Hitler's particular pride. The German news agency admits that a 15-pound incendiary bomb fell ten feet from Dr. Goebbels' residence at Berlin, tearing a deep hole in the garden. The Berlin radlo stated that a delayed action bomb which fell in the ground of the United States Embassy cannot be removed. It will destroy , not only the embassy but other important buildings if it explodcs. The police closed several streets ln Berlin because of. the fear of time-bombs.