CURTAIN LIFTED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 April 1941, Page 8

CURTAIN LIFTED

RESULTS OF R.A.F. RAIDS ON GERMANY ■ SOME DETAILS OF HEAVY DAMAGE. MORALE OF PEOPLE MUCH WEAKENED. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, March 29. Tlic* Air Ministry tonight lifted the. curtain on civilian damage inflicted by R.A.F. raids on Germany. 11 says the weight of the attack increases steadily. "While the R.A.F. concentrates on important objectives, if is inevitable that other damage is inflicted, because many ftirgpls lie in thickly-populated districts. The heavy attacks have already noticeably weakened the morale of the German population, who were told by Marshal Goering that no British aircraft would reach the Ruhr or Berlin. As the British attacks increase the Germans become more and more disinclined to take their medicine. News of the raids on towns in western Germany caused an exodus at the beginning of March, and all houses and hotels within a 50-mile radius of Berlin were filled with refugees. Workers who were left behind showed their discontent with the Government for leaving them so close to attack and at the mercy of British bombers. BRITAIN'S NEW BOMBERS. New types of bombers carry tremendous loads. It is nothing unusual to learn of a plane' carrying 20 500pound bombs or five 1000-pounders and 10 500-pounders. A series of raids on Bremen killed 1000, injured 700 and also forced onethird of the Fockeawulf aeroworks to close down. One raid on Hanover killed 250 people, destroyed 250 houses, seriously damaged 500, and set fire to an aero tyre factory which blazed for two days. Berlin has suffered cumulative damage. Many civilians have been killed. Berlin’s weakness is bad shelters. Most of those killed were in cellars which collapsed. Thirty people in one cellar were drowned by a burst watermain. At least 30 bodies were recovered from a row of damaged houses. , HAMBURG PEOPLE STAGGERED. Citizens of Hamburg were staggered by the damage. Three blocks of, houses each 200 feet long and a block of flats 500 feet long were wrecked or gutted. Cologne has a similar story. A hundred fires destroyed 400 houses, also a factory which burned steadily for three days, and a marshalling yard at Bonntor, which was a quarter of a mile long, was completely gutted. Other areas have been hammered with persistence and precision. Bad weather restricted, but did not prevent important R.A.F. operations over Germany during the week ended at dawn on March 28. Factories, goodsyards and railway stations in Berlin were heavily attacked, 10,000 incendiaries being dropped, as well as some of the heaviest high explosives. Factory areas in Hanover, Dusseldorf and Cologne suffered serious damage. In the Hanover industrial area nine fires were started. Naval bases at den Holder and Brest and docks at Kiel. Cherbourg, Dunkirk and Calais were heavily raided. Operations extended to Norway, where a supply ship at Egcrsund was left blazing and is considered a total loss.