BLASTED AGAIN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 March 1943, Page 3

BLASTED AGAIN

THOUSAND TONS OF BOMBS DROPPED ON ESSEN MUCH DAMAGE DONE HUGE RECTANGULAR MASS OF FIRE. TWENTY-THREE BOMBERS MISSING. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, March 13. Last, night 11.A.F. bombers made another very heavy concentrated attack on Essen, dropping more than 1000 tons oE high explosives and incendiaries, says the Air Ministry. Twenty-three bombers are missing, but this did not prevent the attack being pressed home with the greatest determination. Reports show that Krupp’s huge armament works extending over 800 acres received further substantial damage. R.A.F. reconnaissance showed that large fires were still burning in the centre of Krupp’s works at 3 p.m. today. The bombers found the defences considerably strengthened since the last attack. The flak was intense and accurate, with large numbers of light and heavy guns. Many night fighters were also active.

Despite the opposition all the crews vzere enthusiastic in their reports of the damage achieved. By the end of the raid, which was heavier than the previous one, there was a huge rectangular mass of fire. An enormous cloud of smoke covered the target and reached 15,000 feet. Crews agree that there were at least two big explosions about 10 minutes after the raid began. Visibility was unusually good for the Ruhr, which is usually obscured in a thick mist and industrial haze. Many crews saw the usual dummy fires around Essen, but they were soon dwarfed by the real thing and the decoys, in the words of one pilot, received no attention at all.

Several Lancasters of one squadron left Essen at 500 feet. They had been caught in a searchlight cone and dived to get away from them. On the way back the squadron commander's gunners shot up several goods trains. Fighters on intruder patrols destroyed one enemy bomber over a base in Holland, in addition to one shot down over - Britain, when bombs were dropped at several places on the north-east coast, causing some damage and a number of casualties. MINES LAID IN GERMAN COASTAL WATERS. NAZI RAID ON BRITISH COAST TOWN. LONDON, March 14. Germany had a night free from the R.A.F. last night, after having had ten attacks so fay this month. Last night the R.A.F. was busy in the important task of laying mines to menace German shipping. Air raid warnings were sounded in Copenhagen and in other towns in the Western Baltic last night. The Germans today sent six raiders to attack a coastal town in Eastern Anglia. Houses were bombed, streets were machine-gunned and some people were killed.