WAR PRODUCTION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 October 1940, Page 5

WAR PRODUCTION

CUT DOWN HEAVILY IN GERMANY BY ROYAL AIR FORCE BOMBERS. HUGE DESTRUCTION OF PLANT & STOCKS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.23 a.m.) RUGBY, October 23. According to statements issued by the Air Ministry news service, further information received from reliable sources shows that the R.A.F.’s bombing of military objectives in Germany has met with a large measure of success. The British air offensive has been directed mainly against the enemy’s supply of war material and wellinformed foreign industrialists say that about twenty per cent of the total production capacity of Germany has been affected through the repeated 1 and determined attacks pf ithe R.A.F. In Meuhof and Hamburg. for instance. large oil refineries have been forced to close as a result of constant bombing, and near the Hamburg docks three silos containing about 10.000 tons of wheat were completely destroyed. Docks also are known to have been badly damaged, as well as many important dockside buildings. Evidence has come to hand, too, of the wreckage of a-gas holder at Gelsenkirchen, one of the largest of its kind in Europe. In Berlin, a report from neutral observers states, a large factory making precision machinery for the fighting services has been brought to a temporary standstill, while elsewhere in the city another factory containing machinery of vital importance has also suffered severe damage from direct hits. In the course of the recent raid on Berlin, fires were started in several of the target areas and, in the words of another informant, much damage was done to railway property. The service of the rapid transit system was also affected and several of its sections had to be temporarily suspended.