BERLIN’S BAD NIGHT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 November 1940, Page 5

BERLIN’S BAD NIGHT

SHATTERING R.A.F. ATTACKS MOST POWERFUL YET MADE GREAT FIRES STARTED. MANY OTHER TARGETS BOMBED. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, November 2. Last night and in the early hours of this morning strong forces of British bombers delivered two of the heaviest and most concentrated attacks Berlin has yet experienced.

Power-stations and rail communications, including three of the capital's main railway centres, were repeatedly hit and damaged by high explosives of heavy calibre. Incendiary bombs falling among the wreckage started some of the greatest fires yet seen by British raiders over Germany.

An Air Ministry communique says several of the principal stations and goods yards, with other adjoining buildings, were bombed. Other targets attacked during the night included synthetic oil plants in Magdeburg, an industrial factory near Gelsenkirchen, the Krupps’ works at Essen, where a blast-furnace was bombed, and the railway junction at Osnabruck.

While these operations were in progress, other forces concentrated an attack on aerodromes in enemy-occupied territory. . Fifteen aerodromes were bombed and aircraft on the ground and about to take off for an attack on Biitain were seen to be damaged. • Coastal Command aircraft attacked gun emplacements at Cape Griz-Nez. Two of the British aircraft are missing. AN EARLY START

The first raid, the earliest yet made on Berlin, began shortly after eight p.m. 8.5. T., and laster for close on two hours. The Schlesischer station, about 1J miles from the centre of the city, and the railway yards between the Potsdamer and Anhalter stations, still nearer the heart of the city, were the two main objectives, and they were quickly located by parachute flares, despite a ground haze. At 8.42 p.m. the first high explosives were falling on Schlesischer station, and for the next 30 minutes the station was continuously attacked by relays of aircraft. Many tons of high explosives and hundreds of incendiary bombs were dropped on this one target alone, and when the later aircraft unloaded their cargo, great fires were blazing in many parts of the station. Observation of further damage was made difficult by the intense aiti-air-craft gunfire, and the glare of the many searchlights, but more fires were seen to break out in the yards as the attacks developed. Other targets successfully located and attacked by the early raiders included the Tiergarten railway station, the main line junction a mile and a quarter north-east of the Brunnerstrasse, and a goods yard between the Putlitzstrasse and Lehrter railway stations. explosions shake city. Four hours after the first attacks ended, the leaders of the second wave were over Berlin, and for the next 40 minutes the city shook to the noise of incessant explosions. Important electricity supply stations in Klingenburg and Charlottenburg were the objectives of these raiders, and, though the clear sky of the evening was now half obscured by cloud, both targets were definitely identified and attacked in force. The Klingenburg power station was subjected to 15 minutes’ concentrated bombing, at the end of which a huge fire covering a quarter of a mile square was left blazing. The glow of this fire was visible through two layers of cloud and could be clearly seen from one of the attacking aircraft when 150 miles away on the homeward journey. In the opinion of the crew—all veterans with an aggregate of 56 raids over German to their credit —it was the largest and most intensive fire any of them had seen in Germany. The fire spread rapidly, and later the crew of another aircraft attacking objectives in the heart of the city saw that a blazing area of which the Klingenburg power station appeared to be the centre had grown to nearly a mile in length. NAZI ADMISSIONS POPULATION IN SUSPENSE . ALL NIGHT. LONDON, November 2. A report from Berlin says the British raiding bombers kept the population in suspense all night. The all clear signal was given at 5.50 a.m. The sirens caught tens of thousands in the theatre, cinemas and cafes, or going home. Most of the theatre performances ended abruptly, the managers advising the audiences to go to the basements. The continuous crashing of the antiaircraft guns, mostly on the outskirts, marked the first half of the raid, but later resounding salvoes from the big guns rocked the buildings in the centre of the city. The raiders dropped a number of parachute flares, some of which remained suspended for five minutes. Two redding glows were visible on the horizon. A Berlin communique claims that most of the British planes were turned back by the defences and says single machines flew over at a high altitude and dropped incendiary and explosive bombs in residential districts, a number of people being killed or wounded. Incendiary bombs, it is said, fell on Virchow Hospital, which had been previously hit. The German radio staled that a passenger subway was destroyed, killing a number of people who wqre taking shelter there, and said also that a sawmill was set on fire. The German communique says that several attic fires in Berlin were put out. there being several dead or wounded. It adds that the R.A.F. attacked Amsterdam, where 19 soldiers were reported to have been killed, and attacked a hospital elsewhere, seven Dutchmen being killed.