GERMAN REPLY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 October 1942, Page 3

GERMAN REPLY

TO SMASHING DAYLIGHT ATTACK SCATTERED TIP & RUN RAIDS. TWO ENEMY PLANES SHOT DOWN LONDON, October 19. The German reply to the seven-minute bombing of a French war factory by a force of 94 Lancasters was to send over Britain a score of bombers which attacked 16 towns and villages in East Anglia and the Thames Estuary. They dropped bombs haphazardly and machinegunned trains and streets, darting in and out of low clouds. Two of the raiders were shot down, one by a fighter and one by anti-air-craft gunfire. London had three alerts, but no incidents were reported. The total death roll is believed to be less than 20. Children playing in a school playground had a narrow escape when a bomb fell in another part of the ground. FINE ACHIEVEMENT BOMBING OF LE CREUSOT WORKS. ORGANISATION & TIMING PERFECT. LONDON, October 19. London newspapers today showed pictures of big groups of men who took part in the raid on the Schneider works. One pilot, describing the raid, said he saw all the Lancasters’ bombs drop plumb in the centre of the works. Organisation and timing were perfect, he said. , , The newspapers devote much space to the raid, particularly noticing that the bombers flew the 300-mile journey un-escorted, also that the. German fighter opposition was practically nil, and that little flak was encountered.

VITAL RESULTS

BROUGHT INTO PROSPECT.

DAY AND NIGHT BOMBING.

(British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9.45 a.m.) RUGBY, October 19. The destruction of the SchneiderCreusot works is greeted in the British Press as a very remarkable operation, which promises yet greater developments. “Every detail,” says the “Daily Telegraph,” “encourages the hope that, contrary to the theory so far generally accepted as a result of the experience m the Battle of Britain, it may be possible to devise a successful technique for heavy daylight attacks on targets in Germany, and thus, weather permitting, to keep up a continuous bombing of the

enemy by day and night. The “Telegraph” also notes the contrast in losses with those in the Augsburg raid, while the “Daily Express” says: “Its eight-ton bomb load has made the Lancaster the backbone of big night raids, and its speed and firepower make it as terrible a menace in daylight as in the dark.” The “News-Chronicle” points out that the raids on Lille and Le Creusot were partly inspired by the same tactical idea —dislocation of Germany’s internal communications. “The Lille works and the Schneider factories,” it adds, “both manufacture locomotives, though the Schneider works also produce heavy armaments on a large scale. There is a very new concern which turns out locomotives in big numbers. The damage done there in the two raids will have serious effects throughout the Reich. That is why the Allies are putitng all they know into smashing communications. The bombing of engineering works, railway centres and marshalling yards, and the shooting up of locomotives' in Northern France are all aspects of a single co-ordinated plan, and it is already yielding good dividends. When Germany is called on to fight on two or more fronts, its full value will for the first time be clearly revealed.”