SMASHING ATTACK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 July 1940, Page 6

SMASHING ATTACK

ON HEART OF GERMAN NAVAL DEFENCES BRITISH AIRMEN’S GALLANT FEAT SCHARNHORST AND SETTING WELL BLASTED. HUGE FIRES IN DOCKYARD BUILDINGS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.35 a.m.) RUGBY, July 2. It is revealed that in the R.A.F. raid .on Kiel last night, the battlecruiser Scharnhorst was heavily . bombed when aircraft penetrated the powerful defences of the Kiel Canal and attacked the ship as she lay in the floating dock of the naval base. The Scharnhorst was undergoing repairs necessitated by her recent encounter with a British submarine and R.A.F. units. The attack began a few minutes after midnight, taking the defenders completely by surprise. In excellent visibility, the naval base was easily located without the need of parachute flares. The first aircraft approached the target at a considerable height and then, with engines throttled back, glided down to launch an attack. The first bomb scored a direct hit on the floating dock, about a third of the way along its length, and was quickly followed by others which burst among buildings on the quayside. Following raiders, coming into the attack in rapid succession, were met with a continuous barrage of fire from pom-pom batteries and heavy calibre guns. One aircraft, pressing home its attack through a screen of bursting shells, was repeatedly hit, but reached its objective, and the pilot, dropping his bombs on the dockyard, saw a series of heavy explosions followed within a few minutes by a huge outbreak of fire which was still visible when the crew of the crippled raider were 85 miles away on their homeward journey. For nearly an hour the battleship and the dockyard were continuously attacked by successive units of the strong raiding force. Four direct hits on the Scharnhorst and on the dock were claimed by one aircraft. Another, gliding down to within 2000 feet of the dock, dropped three of its heaviest bombs which burst in a row across the battleship, on the edge of the dock. “Anti-aircraft fire came uncomfortably close,” reported the pilot of this aircraft, “but as we were not hit, I made a second run. In the first I was a bit off the target and did not drop any bombs. I could see the Scharnhorst perfectly—a grey ship in a square frame. As we came over the second time, we definitely scored hits and were so excited that we circled round for some time before leaving. “A few minutes later the floating dock was again hit by a salvo of bombs and the pilot of this aircraft, circling the target to observe the result, saw five large fires break out. The crew of a closely following aircraft, which claimed six hits on the dock, reported that these fires so lit up the target that they could distinctly see the superstructure and gun turrets of the Scharnhorst. Other aircraft meanwhile were attacking naval buildings and storehouses on either side of the Canal. A large building to the north of the docks was struck and set on fire, and another big shed was so completely gutted that the steel girders of its framework were plainly visible, among a mass of flames, to the raiders overhead. Large fires were also started in other parts of the dockyard, and the pilot of the last aircraft to leave Kiel described the largest of these as a solid mass of flames covering as much space as a big aerodrome.