NIGHT & DAY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 March 1943, Page 3

NIGHT & DAY

AIR ONSLAUGHT ON NAZI EUROPE HEAVY AMERICAN RAID ON HAMM. BRITISH BOMBERS BLAST HAMBURG. LONDON, March 4. American Flying Fortresses today took their turn in the night and day offensive ' against Hitler’s Europe. They attacked the docks at Rotterdam and the marshalling yards at Hamm, in Western Germany. These yards have now been raided 85 times. Eleven enemy fighters were accounted for in yesterday’s daylight operations. i Five bombers are missing. The Germans admit today that in last night's raid on Hamburg by British and Canadian bombers, the city suffered considerable damage. Other bombers attacked Western Germany. An intruder aircraft caught a German bomber returning from Britain as it was about to land on an aerodrome in Holland and shot it down. RAIDS ON LONDON THREE ENEMY BOMBERS DESTROYED. LONDON, March 4. Out of 30 or 40 German bombers which raided the London area last night, few managed to get through the heavy barrage. Bombs were dropped in East Anglia, the Home Counties and the London area. Three bombers were destroyed, including the one in Holland. In the night’s full-scale operations ten British bombers were lost. This morning a fighter patrol destroyed an enemy fighter off the coast of Northern France. HIT & RUN EFFORT POOR ENEMY REPRISAL. LONDON. March 3. A terrific barrage greeted German raiders when they came over London shortly after dark tonight. This was the “reprisal” raid which the Londoners had been waiting tor since the Royal Air Force’s great blow against Berlin on Tuesday night. The raiders, as had been expected, proved few and comparatively ineffectual; very few planes penetrated the capital’s wall of fire and they wasted no time in getting out. They raced across London, dropping flares, incendiaries and high-explosive bombs indiscriminately. They were some damage and casualties, but everyone’s impression was that, as a reprisal. it was poor at best. Most Londoners had proceeded home at dusk feeling that a raid was certain, and consequently the city’s civil defence and anti-craft defences were fully on the alert. Guns blazed long before the raiders reached the London area, and buses and trains carried on normally beneath a sky illuminated by myriad shell-flashes and the thunderous roll of incessant explosions. So few were the raiders that there were long gaps between their arrival. They came in singly from different directions, and each met the full blast of the ground defences as it turned in from the outskirts of London. Many newly-arrived American soldiers expressed their wonderment at the frightening roar of London’s new barrage. High-explosive bombs are reported to have fallen in the central district, causing casualties and trapping some people under wreckage. IN ADVERSE WEATHER ATTACKS BY FLYING FORTRESSES. FOURTEEN ENEMY AIRCRAFT DESTROYED. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.50 a.m.) v RUGBY, March 4. A United States Army communique states: “United States Army Air Force Flying Fortresses attacked targets in Germany and Holland today. Overcoming adverse weather conditions one formation penetrated to the important railway marshalling yards and junction of Hamm. No opposition was encountered at the target. Direct hits were made on the yards. Our aircraft were engaged by a strong force of enemy aircraft on the return journey, and many encounters ensued. Information available indicated that 14 enemy aircraft were destroyed., “Another force of Fortresses attacked shipyards at Rotterdam, under difficult weather conditions, but hits were seen in the target area. Five of our bombers are missing.”