“SWEETEST YET”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 April 1943, Page 3

“SWEETEST YET”

RENAULT ARMS WORKS BOMBED AGAIN HEAVY DAMAGE DONE BY AMERICANS POWERFUL R.A.F. NIGHT RAID ON ESSEN. “WHOLE PLACE ON FIRE.” LONDON, April 4. A large force of American Flying .Fortresses flew over France in daylight today to pound the Renault Armament Works, just outside Paris. The Fortresses hit the target heavily. As one pilot said: “It was the sweetest bombing yet. We dropped our bombs practically down the smokestacks of the factory.”

The Germans flung in many fighters to meet the attack and clashes occurred all the way back to the coast. At least 25 enemy fighters fell to the Fortresses and the covering force of fighters shot down eight more.. Two bombers and seven Allied fighters are missing.

It is just over a year since the R.A.F. last raided these works. They scored nearly 200 hits. Two-thirds of the 1 section producing tanks and armoured cars and three-quarters of the gun repair section were destroyed in that raid, but the Germans had since repaired the works. They will now have to start all over again. Airmen have now given their stories of last night’s heavy and concentrated R.A.F. attack on Essen. Nine hundred tons of bombs rained down on the target. The attack was so fierce that at one, stage six 40001 b. bombs were going down every minute. One pilot said it looked as if the whole place was on fire. Amid the almost ceaseless crashes of 4,0001 b. bombs, there were two particularly big explosions. The Germans had more guns; more searchlights and more night fighters than in any previous raid on Essen. Twenty-one bombers are missing. ACTIVITIES IN MARCH. Summing up activities in klarch, the Air Ministry says that some of our aircraft were out every day and night, but operations were somewhat restricted by the weather. In 11 raids, Bomber Command dropped more than 8000 tons of bombs on Germany. Berlin was raided on three occasions, Essen twice, and Hamburg, Nuremburg, Munich, Stuttgart, Duisberg and Borkum once. Among the raids on enemy U-boat bases were the two heavy attacks on St. Nazaire, on which more than 1500 tons of bombs were dropped.

Fighter Command operated every day and night of the month with the exception of last night. Coastal Command sought out U-boats in continuous patrols over the Atlantic. Army Operation Command aircraft were over enemy territory on 19 days and six nights. Advice reaching Stockholm states that Hitler’s Chancellery was seriously damaged during the R.A.F’s. raid on Berlin on March 27. SHELTER HIT IN RAID ON EASTBOURNE. ALL OCCUPANTS KILLED. LONDON, April 3. The main street of a south-east coast town, which the German news agency says was Eastbourne, was thronged with shoppers and gossiping groups when suddenly, from the blu§ r ,sky, seven or eight Focke-Wulf 190 s swooped in and changed the scene to one of scurrying confusion as bombs crashed down and cannon-shells whistled among the crowds. The raiders scored a direct hit on a surface shelter in which every occupant, believed to number 12, was killed. Forty persons in an underground shelter were not hurt when a building above the shelter collapsed. A church chapel, a vicarage, and a big unoccupied hotel were hit. Anti-aircraft batteries claim to have hit a number of the raiders. The German news agency says that fast German bombers today made a low-level attack on Eastbourne. The bombers surprised the defences, and bombed barracks and food depots. No British fighters were encountered. DAYLIGHT ATTACKS MADE BY BRITISH BOMBERS & FIGHTERS. LONDON, April 4. R.A.F. bombers, with a strong fighter cover, were out over France this evening. They bombed the marshalling yards at St. Brieuc, in Brittany. Other aircraft attacked an enemy-oc-cupied aerodrome between Cherbourg and Le Havre. ESSEN DEFENCES MORE POWERFUL THAN EVER * BEFORE. MASSES OF SEARCHLIGHTS & GUNS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.40 a.m.) RUGBY, April 4. Photographs taken during last night’s attack on Essen show that the vast Krupps Works were hit again, the Air Ministry News Service states. They were badly damaged during two attacks last month, but there are 800 acres of them and the Germans had made an obvious effort to save the rest. There more guns, more searchlights, and more night fighters defending the city than ever before. A I pilot who has taken part in 28 sorties over Germany said he had never seen I a more spectacular defence. The tarI get area was covered with glittering I white lights from incendiaries. Searchi lights were working in cones of about thirty each. As soon as a cluster spotted An aircraft it held on to it with its beam and then another cone would take it on. It was as if the planes were being tossed from one to another. There was a slight ground haze last night, but the sky above the city was clear. Essen has always been the most heavily defended area in Germany, with the possible exception of Berlin. It has a concentration of antiaircraft guns and searchlights disposed

over many miles in depth around it. All attacking aircraft have to fly for a maximum period through this superdefended zone. Last night the defences seemed much heavier than ever before.