HEDGE-HOPPING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 October 1942, Page 4

HEDGE-HOPPING

JOURNEY OF BIG BOMBERS ACROSS FRANCE

IN ORDER TO ATTACK CREUSOT WORKS. CLIMB PRIOR TO BOMBING (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 12.50 p.m.) RUGBY, October 18. Further describing Saturday’s daylight raid on Le Creusot the Air Ministry News Service says: “The majority of the great force of Lancasters hedge-hopped across France and climbed to attack. The main target was bombed from between 4,000 and 6,000 feet. A small force was detached to bomb a transformer works, which it did from 500 feet with great effect’. The only Lancaster lost out of a force of 94 was seen to crash here, beside the target. Little anti-aircraft fire was encountered.”

AIRMAN’S STORY

“BUILDINGS JUST FLOPPED APART,” STRUCTURE THAT DISAPPEARED IN EXPLOSION. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 1.10 p.m.) RUGBY, October 18. A vivid account of the hedge-hop-ping dash of the Lancasters across France to bomb the Creusot works was given by a sergeant pilot. “As we all took the hedges,” he said, “it was like the Grand National, except that there were no falls. Some of the French waved. All animals bolted as we roared over their heads. We saw no fighters, but a duck came with a-' wallop through the windscreen. ■ All the way over there were other Lancasters on each side of us. We got to Le Creusot just after sunset. “We could see the factory dead deal’. A stick of bombs from another aircraft dropped in front of us, right across the works.- Then we dropped our stick parallel to it. Buildings just flopped apart. There was a red flash in the middle of one building and it was not there any more. In a little while all we could see.was clouds of smoke, with red fires and bombs bursting inside.”