BIRTHDAY FIREWORKS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 April 1943, Page 4

BIRTHDAY FIREWORKS

PROVIDED BY THE R.A.F. FOR HITLER THREE GERMAN CITIES RAZED. INCLUDING TWO BALTIC PORTS. LONDON, April 21. For Hitler’s birthday the R.A.F. provided a. heavy load of gifts for three of the Fuehrers cities—Berlin, Stettin and Rostock. Four-engined bombers made the German Baltic port of Stettin their main target in a heavy raid. The port and aircraft works at Rostock were bombed, and Mosquito bombers raided Berlin. Stettin had a small raid on September 30, 1939. and it has also been raided by the Russians. Rostock is another important industrial centre and the home of the great Heinkel aircraft works. After the third devastating raid on Rostock last April, the Air Minister, Sir Archibald Sinclair, revealed that 140 acres of the city had been devastated.

Mines were also laid in enemy waters From all these operations 31 of our aircraft are missing.

Mosquitoes, Typhoons and Whirlwinds attacked trains and barges in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany, as well as shipping off the Dutch coast. There were no losses of these planes and they encountered no enemy planes. Fifteen enemy locomotives were damaged. SURVEY OF DAMAGE. A single R.A.F. pilot flew 1300 miles to see what the German Baltic ports looked like after last night’s big raid. Ten hours after the raids there were huge clouds of smoke over both cities. Over Stettin there was a column of smoke five miles high and many big fires were raging. In Rostock at least eight big columns of smoke were seen.

The heaviest attack was on Stettin, where the R.A.F. dropped 150 two-ton bombs in 40 minutes, as well as hundreds of other high explosives and tens of thousands of incendiaries. The Mosquitoes which went' to Berlin had clear weather conditions and the fires started were seen by the returning pilots at a distance of 50 miles. All the fighters and fighter-bombers came safely home from train-busting operations, in which they damaged at least 15 locomotives. DAYLIGHT OFFENSIVE.

The R.A.F. offensive across the English Channel went on in daylight today with a raid by Venturas on the railway yards at Abbeville, in France. Spitfires which went with them had running fights with German fighters over miles of country. The British pilots hit several of the enemy planes, but only claimed one as destroyed. Three Venturas and two Spitfires were lost.

R.A.F. COMMUNIQUE CORRECTNESS ADMITTED BY GERMANS.

LONDON, April 20

“The German High Command confirms the correctness of the R.A.F. communiques, which always endeavour to give exact figures of British and enemy losses.” This statement by the German army spokesman surprised neutral correspondents at a Press conference in Berlin, reports a Zurich message. The statement sharply contradicts declarations by the Nazi Propaganda Ministry and communiques originating from Hitlers headquarters. Contrasting the R.A.F. with the American air force, the spokesman said that the Americans exaggerated, obviously because of lack of experience.