SMASHING BLOW

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 September 1941, Page 6

SMASHING BLOW

STRUCK IN LATEST RAID ON BERLIN EXPLOSIONS & FIRES IN HEART OF CITY. FRANKFURT GETS SIMILAR DOSE. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 12.15 p.m.) RUGBY, September 3. A sudden clearing of clouds over the River Spree gave R.A.F. bomber pilots their direction to the heart of the German capital last night, enabling them to drop bombs which they saw burst among industrial buildings, leaving fires burning. Four-engined Stirlings and Halifaxes, weight-carrying Manchester, and a number of Hampdens. were brought over sea cloud to the exposed capital, to undertake what has been described as one of the heaviest raids—for weight of bombs dropped—on Berlin. The captain of one Stirling said: “As we reached Berlin, guns were shooting up into the main cones of the searchlights. We ran right across the city from south-west to north-east and dropped our bombs. A fire sprang up almost immediately, and a very good fire too, in the centre of the city. My rear-gunner could see it fifteen minutes afterwards. Then, after a time, we saw a great explosion, and another fire started.” Reports in general show that there were enormous explosions when some of the heaviest bombs dropped on Berlin and a very large fire was seen near one of the main railway stations. While our bombers were over Berlin. a heavy attack was developed on Frankfurt. Here also there were convenient gaps in the clouds and flares and moonlight overcame a thickening ground haze which spread out from the River Main. On both banks of the river large fires sprang up and grew steadily as our aircraft bombed into them.