MADE BY R.A.F. ON MULHEIM

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 June 1943, Page 3

MADE BY R.A.F. ON MULHEIM

Main Centre of German Steel Industry ALMOST CONTINUOUS DAY AND NIGHT AIR OFFENSIVE SYNTHETIC RUBBER FACTORY GREATLY DAMAGED BY AMERICANS

LONDON, June 23

The R.A.F. kept up its daylight attack on Occupied Europe today. Last night a heavy and concentrated attack was made on the steel town of Mulheim, ten miles from Essen. Allied air traffic across the Channel was almost continuous today. Messages from the south-east coast state that waves of bombers and fighters crossed the coast in the direction of France. This activity followed on a heavy raid last night by the R.A.F., which found a new Ruhr target for special attention, the town of Mulheim. It lies in the centre of the concentrated industrial area in the Ruhr which the R.A.F.*is doing its best to obliterate. Mulheim is the main centre of Germany’s steel industry and is a big railway junction. On the way the pilots were helped by fires still burning from previous raids on nearby towns.

More details about the American daylight raid on the synthetic rubber factory at Buel show that no part of the target escaped hits by bombs. Photographs taken during the raid show several large explosions in the target area. The German rubber situation, already serious, is even more serious as the result of this raid. The plant was built in 1940 and has since been enlarged to nearly a square mile in area. In the attack on Mulheim last night the raiders encountered hundreds of searchlights massed in cones and the gunfire • was as hot as anything the pilots had ever experienced. Many of the bombers had running battles with enemy fighters. Four enemy aircraft were hit and seen to hurtle down. Thirty-five bombers did not come back.