EXTENDED RAIDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 September 1940, Page 5

EXTENDED RAIDS

GREAT FIRES CAUSED IN L’ORIENT BAY OF BISCAY PORT. AN INTENSE BOMBARDMENT (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, September 28. . The Air Ministry states: “We carried out last night large-scale , attacks on the enemy invasion ports, and other planes attacked communications in western Germany. “We wrecked dock buildings and set fire to warehouses and a timberyard during an intense bombardment of L'Orient, where we caused fires which were visible 70 miles away. The raid, which was aided by good visibility and a cloudless sky, lasted for three and a half hours, and high-explosive and incendiary bombs fell at the rate of five a minute for over an hour. Fires spread rapidly among the dockside warehouses, and a huge blaze engulfed buildings near the harbour power station, 'lighthing up the docks and river. Sticks of high-explosive bombs straddled shipping lying in the basins and at river anchorages. The first bomb from one stick exploded on the eastern dock and the remainder burst in a line ending on the west dock on the opposite bank. "Other night raiders bombed the railway yards in Mannheim and Hamm and a munitions factory in Dusseldorf. L'Orient is a French port and naval base in the Bay of Biscay, 70 miles south of Brest. BOMBS ON BERLIN RAIDS OF LONG DURATION. LONDON, September 29. British bombers again attacked Berlin last night and early this morning. The Royal Air Force attacked in two successive raids, the first of which lasted for three hours. Details are being awaited from the pilots before the issuing of an official communique. German agency messages say that there were two alarms, one lasting nearly two hours, and the other of shorter duration. German reports say that the raiders were driven back by heavy anti-air-craft fire without dropping their bombs. The official German communique says that attacks were made on the Ruhr and Rhineland districts. ROME REPORT CASUALTIES IN GERMAN CAPITAL. LONDON, September 28. The Rome radio states that the R.A.F. raids on Berlin have killed 1753 persons and wounded 204 C. SMASHING ATTACKS ON ENEMY CHANNEL PORTS. MOST VIOLENT TO DATE. LONDON, September 29. Terrifiic explosions shook the coast of Kent tonight when the Royal Air Force delivered what is believed to be the most violent of all attacks on the German invasion ports. Vivid orange and red flashes and sheets of flame lit up the sky as hundreds of bombs burst in an unbroken line along the French and Belgian coasts. The flashes were bigger than anything previously seen from England, indicating that more powerful bombs were being used. The houses on the coast shuddered continually for hours.