HAVOC IN GENOA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 November 1942, Page 4

HAVOC IN GENOA

DETAILS OF TREMENDOUS DAMAGE DONE IN R.A.F. RAIDS HALF OF THE CITY DESTROYED. BASE OUT OF ACTION FOR TIME BEING. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 12.25 p.m.) RUGBY, November 22. The burnt and destroyed areas in Genoa are so large and many that it is useless to attempt to give details of the damage. Seen from a height, one has an impression that half the ■ town has been destroyed, and in the port almost everything seems to be destroyed, burnt or damaged.”—This is a message received a few days ago from a man who looked down from a hill on the devastated Italian city. Genoa has been raided six- times by the R.A.F. since the opening of the Allied offensive in the Mediterranean. The total duration of these raids was only two and a half hours, but the damage has been enormous. The operations cost the R.A.F. only twelve aircraft in six attacks. For the time at least, Genoa is knocked out as an effective Axis supply port. The damage in the port is believed to include hits on the liners Augustus and Roma, both of over 30,000 tons. There are large areas in the city devastated by fire.