MADE WITHOUT LOSS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 September 1940, Page 5

MADE WITHOUT LOSS

MANY ATTACKS BY BRITISH BOMBERS ON COASTAL AND INLAND OBJECTIVES. BOMB BURSTS VERY CLOSE | TO SCHARNHORST. 11 (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.50 a.m.) ) RUGBY, September 26. “All our aircraft returned safely t from extensive bombing operations t over Germany and the Channel ports last night,” states an Air i Ministry communique. > “In Berlin aircraft of the Bomber .. Command attacked power stations, . railway communications and the Tem- . plehof Aerodrome. “At Kiel, docks were bombed and ! the goods yards at Osnabruck, Ehrang, > Hamm, Manheim and Hanover were . also damaged. I “Shipping, barges and quayside r stores at Antwerp, Flushing. Ostend, ■ Dunkirk, Calais and Boulogne were , again attacked. “An aircraft of the Coastal Command • shot down an enemy bomber into the sea yesterday afternoon. “Last night, forces of the Coastal ■ Command bombed oil tanks at Brest. The tanks were set on fire and shipping in the harbour was also severely damaged. The strongly defended naval dockyard of Kiel, in which the Scharnhorst is lying, was attacked last night by a force of heavy bombers. Attacks by individual aircraft were made at intervals. over a period of two hours, and many direct hits were scored on the targets. Sticks of heavy calibre bombs fell across a northern dockyard, and one of the shipbuilding yards and the brilliant yellow flash of one big explosion was seen very close to the Scharnhorst. ' “At Ehrang bomb bursts were seen in the centre of the railway yards and one salvo was followed, five minutes later by a violent explosion. Another great explosion, with a vivid blue flash, is believed to have marked a direct hit on an electrical power house. “Flames and heavjy explosions in goods yards signalled the usual nightly bombardment of Hamm and several big fires were started in a yard at Mannheim. In an. attack on Osnabruck. many direct hits were scored on tracks, and a goods siding and by the light of fires started in the yard the crew of one of the bombers saw flying debris from a tall chimney, which collapsed across the track. Over Germany, bombs were also dropped at Lubeck, on railway yards near Hanover, on the main line track at Lunen. A canal was straddled and dock gates hit in an attack on the river port of Haltern, south-west of Munster and at Rendsburg, to the west of Kiel, a factory was bombed and set on fire. Varel Aerodrome and Warnemunde seaplane base were also attacked. In Belgium, heavy and medium bomber forces raided the docks at Antwerp, and a large power station at Brussels. Bombs were seen in both cases to explode within the target area. 1 Shipping concentrations and harbour installations at Flushing, Dunkirk, Os- 1 tend, Calais and Boulogne were again heavily bombed, the raids starting in 1 the early hours of Thursday morning ' and continuing until shortly before ' dawn. <

Polish crews operating with the R.A.F., took part in the attacks on Ostend, where hits were scored on the main wet docks and quayside basins, in which a number of ships were lying. The attacks were pressed home from low levels in the face of intense antiaircraft fire and the glare of many searchlights. In additon to the damage caused by high-explosive bombs, heavy fires were started within docks by the incendiary bombs. Fires and heavy explosions were also reported at Calais by medium bomber crews, who delivered a concentrated attack lasting half an hour on a lock and shipping basins.

At Boulogne, which was raided at intervals for three and a half hours, many violent explosions were caused. One, described as terrific by an observer, momentarily lit up the whole town. Great fires were started around the eight main basins. Several of these, whose flames leapt two hundred feet into the air, could be seen by the crews of aircraft approaching the target from fifty miles out at sea. LONDONERS ANGRY LACK OF ANY PRETENCE OF DECENCY. ON PART OF GERMAN BOMBERS. RUGBY, September 25. The nineteenth successive air raid “alert” was sounded in London this evening, and Londoners resigned themselves to the orchestra of the heavy British anti-aircraft barrage, punctuated by the crash of humble homes hit by bombs dropped indiscriminately from German aeroplanes. This bombing seemed even more senseless and criminal on the previous night, when several more hospitals were hit, and the citizens of the metropolis, who proverbially are kindly-na-tured and little prone to anger, are now growing indignant at the lack of any pretence of decency on the part of the Germans in their hideous campaign against the civilian populations. The Germans do not realise according to neutral observers, that instead of producing horror among the Londoners, they are making them extremely angry; and “when Londoners are really angry,” said a neutral observer, “they are a tougher proposition than the Germans can deal with.”