HEAVIEST YET

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 June 1941, Page 5

HEAVIEST YET

BRITISH ATTACK ON RUHR VERY LARGE FORCE USED. MANY FACTORIES BLASTED OUT OF EXISTENCE. LONDON. June 13. The R.A.F. last night made the heaviest attack of the war over the Ruhr area, where industrial objectives were bombed. It is stated that a very large force was used. Many industrial buildings were blasted out of existence. Fires reached such proportions that the pilots were soon able to see their targets without the use of flares. The planes flew, so iow that the crews felt the blast from the heavier bombs and saw fragments of masonry flying into the air. At one railway yard a succession of explosions indicated that an ammunition store had been blown up.

NAVAL BASES BOMBED. Coastal Command aircraft attacked the docks at Brest where the German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the cruiser Prinz Eugen are sheltering. The Antwerp docks and targets near Rotterdam were also bombed. These widespread day and night operations cost us eight planes. An enemy flying-boat was destroyed by a reconnaissance plane off the coast of Norway. Two enemy fighters were destroyed today and one bomber last night in raids on Britain, which were on a small scale. CASUALTIES IN BRITAIN. Since the “blitz” on Britain started in September, 39,678 civilians have been killed. In May, 5394 were killed and 5.200 so injured that they were detained in hospital. The killed included 753 children under the age of 16.