FIRES & EXPLOSIONS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 July 1940, Page 5

FIRES & EXPLOSIONS

CAUSED IN ENEMY AREAS SYSTEMATIC DESTRUCTION OF OIL DEPOTS. INFERNO AT ST NAZAIRE (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, July 27. Oil stores in German hands were heavily damaged last night, when strong forces of Royal Air Force bombers attacked oil refineries and storage depots. The objectives were five refineries and depots at Nantes, and three separate installations at St Nazaire, with a total storage capacity of 142,000 tons. Both objectives were located shortly after midnight, and each was systematically bombed for oven an hour by separate striking forces. Tons of highexplosive bombs and several hundreds of small incendiary bombs were dropped on the two targets, in face of considerable opposition from ground defences. At Nantes salvoes of heavy-calibre bombs were seen to burst in many parts of the target area. A big storage depot was straddled. Great clouds of smoke were seen issuing from the centre of one of the refineries, and many of the fires started were still burning strongly when the last of the bombers left for home. In the attack on the St Nazaire oil depot, repeated hits on the target were followed by an explosion and clouds of black smoke. The western end of the depot appeared to have been particularly heavily, damaged, and one raiding crew reported a series of explosions in this area, which continued for some time after the bombing ceased.