MADE ON BOULOGNE HARBOUR .

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 September 1940, Page 6

MADE ON BOULOGNE HARBOUR .

By Waves of British Bombers » DOCK AREA GIRDLED WITH FLAMES PEOPLE IN ENGLAND KEPT AWAKE. BY EXPLOSIONS (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.35 a.in.) RUGBY; September 6. _ Three waves of Coastal Command aircraft Blenheims, Beauforts and Albacores, opened the attack on Boulogne Harbour last night. The Beauforts went in first and their salvos started fires which lit up the harbour for the next wave composed of Fleet Air Arm Albacores. They started more fires and scored hits on important targets near the Loubet Basin. Then came the biggest attack of all, from the Blenheims. Some of them were circling’ outside the harbour, ready to swoop, while the Albacores were dropping their bombs. Flares from the Blenheims, combined with searchlights and flashes of anti-aircraft gunfire, illuminated the whole waterfront and the town beyond. A line of buildings on the Quai Gambetta was set fire, and a few minutes later there was a vast yellow flash in the midst of flames, followed by a continuous orange glare. Another attack by Blenheims, again on Loubet Basin, started another great fire. As fast as one aircraft started fires, another came in and bombed the burning area again, so that after three hours of bombardment, the docks were still girdled by an almost unbroken chain of flames. It is reported in the Press that so heavy was the attack on Boulogne that residents on the southeast coast of -England were kept awake by the sound of explosions. One resident said: “It went on hour after hour until daybreak. Every window in the town here rattled.