ATTACKS AT DUSK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 December 1940, Page 6

ATTACKS AT DUSK

MADE BY BRITISH BOMBERS TREMENDOUS DAMAGE DONE. AT BREST & LOR TENT. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day. 11.50 a.m.) RUGBY. December 8. Details given by the Air Ministry news service of the attacks on Brest and Lorient revealed that the first aircraft went in over Brest just as daylight faded.' A bright moon assisted those who followed. At the outset, fires were started around the naval school and soon the whole area was quartered by two oblongs of flame. Thirty seconds after the burst of large-calibre bombs aimed at the power station, there was. a vast explosion. An observer described the explosion as being like a huge blacksmith's forge, from which rose showers of debris from the shattered buildings. There were more fires when incendiary bombs fell oh an infantry barracks and on buildings I between them and several naval barracks. High-explosive bombs were also dropped on the burning area. A drydock was among other targets bombed! The attacks, from which one aircraft did not return, were carried out through an intense barrage of antiaircraft fire.

During the raid on Lorient, fifteen fires were counted in one part of the naval station, and also around the dry dock. Other objectives were shipbuilding yards and ordnance works. There were a few raiders over London early in the evening and these were greeted by a heavy anti-aircraft barrage. The day itself had been quiet and an Air Ministry and Ministry of Home Security communique, issued in the afternoon states: “One enemy fighter-bomber was shot down in the Channel early in the afternoon. Otherwise there is nothing to report.”

NAZI METHODS VIEWS OF AERONAUTICAL CORRESPONDENT. ATTEMPTS TO SMASH BRITAIN. (Received This Day, 12.30 p.m.) LONDON, December 8. Germany’s policy of trying to knock out the R.A.F. has apparently been abandoned, says the aeronautical correspondent of the “Sunday Times,” who now believes that Germany is concentrating on three methods to smash by air Britain’s ability to make war: — (1) A direct frontal attack against British industry and ports. (2) A blockade by a strangehold on shipping approaching British ports, particularly from America. . (3) A diversion in the East. In direct frontal attack, Germany is using about 1,200 planes from bases in France and Holland, while some 300 Italian planes are operating from Belgium. These forces are only a small proportion of the German air strength. The scale of German night attacks may diminish, because of the highly Successful R.A.F. raids on German factories, aerodromes and communications, the effect of which is gredter than is generally realised. An attacx against Egypt is likely. No reinforcements from Germany have arrived in North Africa, but ground preparations •are going on.