BELOW ZERO

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 November 1941, Page 5

BELOW ZERO

CONDITIONS ENDURED BY AIRMEN IN PRESSING HOME ATTACK ON BERLIN. ' LARGE FIRES STARTED IN COLOGNE. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, November 8. Some idea of the appalling weather conditions which faced the majority of the R.A.F. bomber crews during last night’s heaviest attack on Germany can be understood from the account of an observer of a Wellington which attacked Berlin. The temperatures he encountered were as low as two degrees below zero. “I went to the astro dome,” he said, “to take some sights. To keep my hands free I wore only my silk inner gloves. It was agonizing just to touch the sextant and the pain burnt into my fingers as if they were scalded. “I could not hold on to the sextant for more than 30 seconds, and it took me 10 minutes to get the circulation in my hands going again. When I went to pick up my leather gloves they were frozen as stiff as a board.” The crews of the bombers working over Berlin were very pleased with the work they had done there. They were

sure they had found their objectives and confident they had damaged them. At Cologne there was more chance than over Berlin to see the results of the night’s work. Some large fires were reported by bombers who got there while the sky was, for the time being, comparatively clear. They could see their bombs burst and watch the fires being started from the explosion and then spread. The weather at Cologne was not so bad and the attack was pressed home with good effect. Many bombers came right down over the city and bombed from a low level. The correspondent of a Spanish newspaper in Berlin, speaking of the heavy R.A.F. raid on the night of November 7, says that Berliners were caught completely off their guard, because the bad weather had led to the belief that a raid was impossible. ‘We had to rush to our shelters from our beds and listen there to a noisy orchestra as the British fought their duel with the anti-aircraft guns,” he said.