UNDERGONE BY PEOPLE OF BERLIN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 October 1940, Page 5

UNDERGONE BY PEOPLE OF BERLIN

Terrific Attacks by Royal Air Force PARTS OF CITY BECOME BLAZING INFERNO ITALIAN INDUSTRIAL CENTRES BOMBED SIMULTANEOUSLY The ever-growing strength of the R.A.F. was demonstrated on Sunday night when it struck simultaneously at the capital of the German Reich and at two Italian industrial centres, a 8.8. C. broadcast states. An Air Ministry communique reports that Berlin was twice raided during the night, the first raid before 10 o clock and the second ending at 4 o’clock. A thick ground haze made the targets difficult to locate in the first raid, but explosive and incendiary bombs were dropped on objectives and fires were started. Two hours after the first raid Berlin was again startled by heavy calibre bombs bursting in the city. Visibility was now better and a stick of heavy,bombs was dropped across an important objective in the very heart of the city, setting part of it on fire. Another raider set fire to a large building in the same area. Railway yards were also heavily attacked and fires were still burning when the raiders left. In Italy industrial plants at Turin and Milan were bombed. The naval dockyards at Hamburg and Wilhelmshaven were heavily bombed and a large warship is believed to have been hit. Oil refineries, aluminimum works, various objectives in the Ruhr, including Krupps, and the ports of Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Flushing and several enemy aerodromes were also attacked. From these operations only one machine is missing. A correspondent in Berlin describes the .night as one of unprecedented terror. One of Berlin’s principal streets was suddenly turned into a burning inferno. Houses were cut in half as if by a huge knife. The attack was terrific. Raids on Britain yesterday were carried out by single German planes. Some of them tried to reach London and others concentrated on the Midlands and the north-west. In the London area some houses were hit and a block of flats damaged. A Lancashire factory was damaged and bombs also fell at several points on the Channel coast. The casualties were nowhere large in number. So far one enemy bomber is officially reported to have been destroyed during Sunday night’s raids on Britain.