MANY RAIDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 September 1940, Page 5

MANY RAIDS

MADE BY BRITISH BOMBERS WILHELMSHAVEN STRONGLY ATTACKED. L’ORIENT AGAIN VISITED. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.15 a.m.) RUGBY, September 29. An Air Ministry communique on the operations carried out last night by bomber forces of the R.A.F. over Germany and occupied Channel ports states: —“The weather conditions generally in North Germany were unfavourable, but numbers of our aircraft reached their objectives. Berlin and district electric power stations and antiaircraft gun positions were bombed. Elsewhere in North Germany targets included important railway centres and aerodromes. The naval base at Wilhelmshaven was strongly attacked and fires and explosions were caused. Munitions works at Hanau, near Frankfurt, suffered severe damage. Along the Channel coast, Le Havre, Fecamp, Boulogne, Calais and Dunkirk were all heavily bombed as well as a line of big gun emplacements near Cape Gris Nez. The enemy base at L'Orient, was again attacked. Two of our - aircraft are missing in these operations.’’ LONDON BARRAGE TREMENDOUS VOLUME OF FIRE. METHODS OF CONTROL. LONDON. September 29. Greater London’s anti-aircraft guns are now able to fire an average of more than one shell per second throughout the night, and Britain’s anti-aircraft guns could fire the entire production of the year 1918 in less than a month. The guns of London are capable night after night of keeping dozens of tons of metal continually bursting in the sky. The gunfire is chiefly of two classes: Firstly, groups of batteries put up a “pattern” fire, forcing the bombers to sheer off and avoid destruction, and preventing accurate bombing, and secondly, other batteries try to hit single machines or formations. Their fire is designed to “bracket” the enemy with groups of shells in front and behind, and then plaster the correct area. PALACE WORKMAN DEATH FROM WOUNDS. LONDON, September 28. Mr W. Davies, a workman who was seriously injured when the Royal Chapel at Buckingham Palace was bombed, has died in hospital. GERMAN CLAIMS LONDON, September 28. A German High Command communique states: "We yesterday strongly bombed harbour equipment, docks, factories, power stations and gasworks in London, troop encampments in southern England and docks in Bristol. We directly hit an armament works in the Midlands. "Our long-range batteries again shelled Dover and damaged three merchantmen, two of which later sank. A German fighter sank a convoyed merchantman of 5000 tons north of Ireland. “A few single enemy planes bombed the north-west of Germany but did no damage. . “The enemy yesterday lost 101 planes, and 38 of ours have not returned.” 1 The Berlin correspondent of the British United Press says that officials simultaneously stated that the respective losses of aircraft were 90 British and 42 German. The German news agency stated. ‘We successfully attacked England again yesterday, causing great fires and explosions in London and sinking many ships in docks. Quays and warehouses on the Thames and also a sloop were considerably damaged. Strong formations attacked industrial targets in Derby, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. Two conveys en route to Liverpool in the Irish Sea were scattered. The harbours of Hull and Newcastle were heavily hit.” NIGHT RAIDERS THREE NAZI BOMBERS DESTROYED.

ONE FOULS BALLOON CABLE. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.52 a.m.) RUGBY, September 29. An Air Ministry and Ministry for Home Security communique states: “Three enemy aircraft, all bombers, have been destroyed over this country since midnight. One, which was brought down during the night, fouled a balloon cable and crashed into the sea off the south coast and a second was shot down in the Thames by fighters in the morning. Later another was shot down into the sea, off the southeast coast, by anti-aircraft guns. “Enemy activities over Britain in the morning consisted of a few attacks by single aircraft. Some bombs were dropped at points in the Thames Estu- . ary, on two towns and villages on the south coast and on a village in the Hoine counties. Little damage was done by any of these attacks and there was a very small number of casualties.”

CASUALTIES IN LONDON SEVERAL A.R.P. WORKERS KILLED. (Received This Day, 10.35 a.m.) LONDON, September 29. Two persons were killed and five injured last night by a bomb falling in the middle of a road in a southwestern suburb, wrecking two buses and two houses. A family of four, sheltering on the ground floor, were killed when a bomb hit a house in a north-western suburb. Several A.R.P. workers were killed when a hall in South London was demolished. The wardens were buried under debris. A warehouse in a neighbouring street was hit by bombs and the resultant fire lasted for three hours, involving three working-class tenements, the occupants of which were safely evacuated. Many of them were hurt when they were blown from their beds.