HAMBURG DOCKS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 September 1940, Page 5

HAMBURG DOCKS

AGAIN BOMBARDED BY R.A.F. GREAT FIRES STARTED ALSO AT BREMEN. DAMAGE IN NAVAL AND OTHER AREAS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.5 a.m.) RUGBY, September 10. The night's heaviest attack by the R.A.F. was directed against the naval dockyards at Hamburg, where tons of high explosives and many incendiary bombs were dropped in the course of half an hour of almost continuous bombardment. Docks already severely damaged in the previbus night’s raid were repeatedly straddled by sticks of heavy calibre bombs. Fires which broke out in the target area were still visible long after the raiders had left. At Bremen, more great fires were started as repeated hits were registered on docks and shipbuilding yards. Direct hits were also scored on the naval station at Wilhelmshaven, where heavy bombs were clearly seen to i burst on one end of the Naval Barracks. Another line of bombs, which overshot the main dockyards, burst across a mine-sweeper depot and straddled a pontoon harbour. The objective in Berlin was the important Newkoln Gasworks, in the suburbs. Bombs were seen to burst on this target and heavy explosions occurred in the course of the attack, which began about midnight and was carried out in face of intense antiaircraft fire. A later raid in the early hours of the morning on goods yards at Brussels lasted for over an hour. Bombs fell across the south end of the yard, causing an immediate outbreak of fire, followed ten minutes later by a terrific explosion. A few minutes later another direct hit was scored on the target, causing a second violent explosion and a fierce outbreak of fire, visible forty miles away, which was still burning strongly when the last raider left. Other night raiding forces attacked docks at Wiemar, a blast furnace and railway sidings at Essen, aerodromes at Diepholz, Hoya, Celle, Cuxhaven and Schipol. AIR MINISTRY REPORT INLAND & COASTAL TARGETS ATTACKED. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.5 a.m.) RUGBY, September 10. “Our bombers last night continued their attacks on military objectives in Germany and enemy-occupied Holland, Belgium and France,” states an Air Ministry communique. “Among the targets attacked were lighting installations at Berlin, shipyards at Bremen and Hamburg, docks at Kiel, Wilhelmshafen and Wiemar, goods yards at Krefeld and Brussels, factories at Essen and Barnstorf, rail communications and several enemy aerodromes. Other bomber forces attacked shipping and barge concentrations in Ostend, Calais and Boulogne and gun emplacements at Cap Gris Nez. Three of our aircraft did not return.”