SECOND THOUSAND BOMBER RAID

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 June 1942, Page 3

SECOND THOUSAND BOMBER RAID

Made by R.A.F Within 48 Hours of First MR CHURCHILL PROMISES STILL GREATER BLOWS SOON WHEN AIR FORCES OF UNITED STATES JOIN IN (By Telegraph.—Press Association—Copyright.) LONDON, June 2. _ A second thousand bomber raid on Germany’s most vital centres of war industry has followed within 48 hours of the first. Mr Churchill, speaking in the House of Commons today, gave this news, which will hearten the whole free world. He stated that 1036 planes took part in a mass raid on Germany last night. The objective was the Essen region of the industrial Ruhr, where the great Krupp munitions works are situated. The preliminary reports indicate that many and widespread fires were started, the Prime Minister said. These two great night raids made the opening move in an air' offensive that would increase in strength when the R.A.F. was joined—as it soon would be-—by air forces of the United States, Mr Churchill added, An Air Ministry communique states that 35 planes were lost in the night’s operations, which is nine less than on Saturday night. Every one of the bombers was made in a British factory. CASUALTIES IN COLOGNE - Some idea of what these vast armadas are doing is given today by the “New York Times,’’ which says private information from reliable neutral observers discloses that probably 20,000 people were killed in the raid on Cologne, and another 60,000 probably wounded. Three-fifths of the inhabitants of Cologne are being officially evacuated, and there is a report that entire populations of the industrial parts of the Ruhr have started a mass migration. The “New York Times’’ quotes the neutral observers as saying that roughly five-sevenths of Cologne’s chemical and machine tool industries are completely wrecked. The Air Minister (Sir Archibald Sinclair) has congratulated everybody concerned in the R.A.F’s. second thousand .bomber raid, which smashed at the heart of Germany’s great war industrial and transport system. The double blow thus struck, the Minister said, was the climax of months of patient work and cunning contriving. The enemy knew that the next blow would be more tremendous still.