SERIES OF RAIDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 October 1940, Page 6

SERIES OF RAIDS

FEW ENEMY PLANES REACH LONDON SOME CASUALTIES CAUSED. ' NAZI MACHINE DESTROYED. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.50 a.m.) RUGBY, October 13. Soon after midday today the enemy began a series of raids over SouthEast England. “The number of aircraft employed was not very large.” states an Air Ministry and Ministry of Home Security communique, “but successive formations crossed the Kent coast during the early afternoon and some of the enemy reached the London area. Bombs were dropped at several points in London and its suburbs. No severe damage was done, but some casualties were caused. In one district several houses were damaged and a fire was started, but it was speedily extinguished. A number of casualties are reported in two places on the outskirts of London. It is known so far that one enemy aircraft was destroyed. One of our fighters was lost, but the pilot is safe.” STILL FOOLED PEOPLE OF GERMANY EXPECT WAR TO CONCLUDE BEFORE WINTER. BOMBED DISTRICTS SEALED. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.5 p.m.) LONDON, October 13. Travellers arriving at Istanbul from the Balkans say that five large merchantmen sank in Hamburg Harbour followed on an attack by British bombers. The damage to the harbour is enormous. It is now hardly useable. Oil tanks burn continuously. Yugoslav workers in Hanover have asked their Government to repatriate them, as they cannot stand the inferno of R.A.F. bombings nightly. These and other witnesses comment on the uncanny precision of the British bombers, but generally information concerning the effects of the bombing is difficult to obtain, the districts affected being sealed from each other to prevent a leakage of information. The effect of the R.A.F’s. work on German morale therefore has been until now local, and not general.

A visitor from Berlin states that the people’s confidence in the Fuehrer is still high. They believe that the war will end before winter. The Propaganda Minister has given an impression that London is already a mass of ruins. It is thought that the disappointment ahead for the people may _________________”■

seriously affect their morale for the second winter of war, apparently the most dismal prospect the population can imagine.