BOMBER COMMAND

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 March 1943, Page 4

BOMBER COMMAND

PERSONNEL CONGRATULATED BY MR CHURCHILL FINE RATE OF DISCHARGE. IMPROVEMENTS PROMISED. w—(British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 1.30 p.m.) RUGBY, March 1. Mr Churchill has sent a message to Air Chief Marshal Harris, of the Bomber Command: “I congratulate you and all ranks of the Metropolitan Bomber Command upon their very fine rate of discharge upon Germany, Italy and other enemy targets, achieved in February. In the total volume you exceeded by half as much again any previous month of the war. February thus marks quite a definite advance, to which further improvements will be made.” Fifteen minutes after the first flares were dropped in last night’s raid on St. Nazaire the port was, in the words of one pilot, like a burning torch, which turned night into day over an area of thirty miles around, says the Air Ministry. One fire in the area appeared to be an oil depot and a gigantic pall of smoke rolled up from it to a height of 16,000 feet. Another hugh fire seemed to be in the marshalling yards. As the raid was proceeding there was a huge explosion, the force of which was felt by a pilot at 15,000 feet.