AGAIN BLASTED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 December 1942, Page 3

AGAIN BLASTED

ANOTHER RAID ON TURIN FIES STILL BURNING FROM PREVIOUS NIGHT. ■ ONLY THREE BOMBERS LOST. LONDON. Deember 10. When R.A.F. heavy bombers were flying over the Alps last night to raid Turin for the second night running, the crews could sec fires ahead, still blazing in Turin from the previous night’s raid. The R.A.F. again blasted factories and other objectives with heavy bombs and dropped an enormous number of incendiaries, adding to the devatsation of. the previous night. German anti-aircraft-guns and searchlights on the French coast gave a strong display as the bombers started on the flight and again as they returned six or seven hours later. As bursting shells flashed in the night sky houses on the Dover coast were shaken by the enemy gunfire. A strong force of bombers took part in the attack. Three are reported missing. One enemy fighter was shot down. LARGE FIRES SPREADING IN INDUSTRIAL AREA REMARKABLY LIGHT R.A.F. LOSSES (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9.50 a.m.) RUGBY, December 10. In last night’s raid on Turin the last pilots to leave the target reported that large fires were spreading in the industrial area. The raid was the fourteenth on Italy and the seventh on Turin since the bombing of Italy began on October 22. R.A.F. losses during these heavy, concentrated attacks have been particularly light, only 27 aircraft having been lost. On four occasions there were no losses and the greatest loss was five aircraft, when Milan was raided on October 24. The average losses for the whole of the raids probably represents under two per cent of the aircraft employed. “The Times’’ comments that, the remarkable immunity the attacks have enjoyed would alone justify a concentration against Italy but the attacks are also of great value as the destruction wrought in seaport towns is a direct contribution to the success of the Allied operations in Tunisia and even in Libya. Every bomb dropped on inland industrial towns helped cause. GREAT DAMAGE ADMITTED BY ITALIANS. MANY BUILDINGS COLLAPSE. (Received This Day, 10.40 a.m.) LONDON, December 10. An Italian communique says the R.A.F. raid on Turin last night again caused great damage. Numerous buildings were hit and set on fire. 'Many of them collapsed. Sixty-five were killed and 112 injured as a result of the raid on Tuesday night. The incendiaries dropped started many more fires and as the last bombers left fifty-five minutes after the first arrived the glare of new fires was so great that it was difficult to see the targets through the glow. After the bombers had recrossed the Alps the peaks could be seen silhouetted against the glow in the sky.

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