BERLIN’S ORDEAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 October 1940, Page 5

BERLIN’S ORDEAL

LONG & RAKING RAID MOST SEVERE CITY HAS YET > ENDURED/ i SKY LIT UP BY FIRES. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, October 8. Messages from Berlin state that the city last night underwent a long and raking air raid. Fires lit up the sky and a pall of smoke drifted across the city. The Berlin correspondent of the Associated Press reports that the Royal Air Force raided the capital for four hours 42 minutes, its bombers repeatedly crossing the city in spite of intense anti-aircraft fire. He states that the'raid was the most severe Berlin has had. Two of the bombs fell within a stone’s throw of the German Air Ministry’s building in the centre of the city, the blasts being heard at the headquarters of an American news agency. A communique by the British Air Ministry states that during the night British bombs were dropped in the Berlin area and also on other targets in various .parts of Germany and on the Channel ports. The German High Command has admitted that storehouses and railway junctions were hit. German reports claim that one British plane over Berlin was shot down by anti-aircraft fire. The raids kept most of the German radio stations off the air. TWO HOSPITALS HIT ACCORDING TO GERMAN REPORT. (Received This Day, ,9.25 a.m.) LONDON, October 8. According to a Berlin radio message the R.A.F. hit two hospitals, one of which is the famous Robert Koch Hospital, and also hit houses and the Soren railway lines. Several civilians, who failed to take cover, were killed or injured. MONEY FOR PLANES GIFTS TOTAL SIX MILLIONS. LONDON. October 8. Gifts for the purchase of aircraft have reached £6,000,000, of which the colonies have contributed £4,000,000 and the Dominions and Britain £l,000,000 each. Donations are arriving daily and have increased since the blitzkrieg was intensified. HELP FOR LONDONERS OVERSEAS CONTRIBUTIONS. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, October 7. The Lord Mayor of London’s air raid distress fund has reached a total of £1,030.000 as the result of several large contributions from overseas, which included a further £60,000 from the Lord Mayor of Brisbane, £lO,OOO from Bengal, another £5OOO from Tasmania, £4OOO from Perth, Western Australia, and 10.000 rupees from the Maharajah of Rewa.