BOMBS ON KREFELD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 June 1943, Page 3

BOMBS ON KREFELD

ONE OF THE HEAVIEST LOADS EVER DROPPED

ONE GREAT MASS OF FIRE IN TARGET AREA.

FLYING FORTRESSES DEFY STRONG DEFENCES.

(British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.5 a.m.) RUGBY, June 22. One of the heaviest logds of bombs so far released on any German target was dropped on Krefeld last night. Four thousand pounders were falling at the rate of five ?. minute at one time during

the attack, which lasted only 50 minutes. The whole target, a

pilot stated, appeared to be one solid mass of fire, glowing and giving off dense clouds of thick

smoke, rising thousands of feet. Later arrivals said the smoke pall was over three miles high “If you can imagine a blaze five or six times as big as the Coventry one, you get some idea of what Krefeld looked like,” said one airman .As the first arrivals approached they saw the huge belt of Ruhr defences going into action, but the defences at Krefeld itself were slow to open up and were soon overwhelmed. There were, however, more night fighters than for some time and many combats occurred in bright moonlight along the route.

'Zero hour was 1.30 a.m. and fires started by the first wave of attackers seemed to have spread very rapidly. Krefeld contains the largest producer of high grade steels in Germany—the great Deutzsche Edelstahlwerke combine, which turns out nearly 200,000 tons a year.

The crew of one bomber originally reported missing from the raid have been picked up in the North Sea. Close on the heels of the Krefeld raid, Flying Fortresses were over the Rhineland in force early this morning and tonight the western fringe of Germany was smouldering and shuddering after 24 hours of attacks. Other Fortresses, in daylight today, raided an objective in Belgium. A joint BritishAmerican communique, describing these operations, says: “A large formation of Flying Fortresses, with an escort, .penetrated strong anti-aircraft fire and fighter defences to attack a synthetic rubber factory at Huis, near Reculinghausen, in the Ruhr, which supplies a very considerable portion of the enemy’s buna rubber and which is the second largest producer of its kind in the whole of Axis Europe. Another formation of Fortresses attacked a General Motors plant near Antwerp, experiencing heavy fighter opposition. The bombing results were good and the fires were started in both target areas. The bombers destroyed a considerable numbei’ of the enemy.

‘‘Many squadrons of American, rA.F., Dominion and Allied fighters carried out escorting and supporting operations. Spitfires drove off a force of 30 to 40 Focke-Wulfs which tried unsuccessfully to intercept our bombers returning over Holland. “R.A.F. Mitchells, with a fighter escort, today bombed docks and shipping at Rotterdam. Our fighters destroyed seven of the enemy.

“We lost in these operations 20 bombers and four fighters.”