LONG FLIGHT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 October 1943, Page 4

LONG FLIGHT

THROUGH CLOUD & STORMS MADE BY LANCASTERS TO LEIPZIG WEATHER UPSETS ENEMY DEFENCES. EXPERIENCES OF BOMBER CREWS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.40 a.m.) RUGBY, October 21. Lancaster crews last night had to fly through some of the worst weather experienced for a long time. The main target, Leipzig, the fifth • largest city in Germany and one of the centres of the Reich aircraft industry, is nearly 600 miles from England.

The weather began to close in as soon as the bombers reached the enemy coast. Scattered cloud grew thicker, and in some places reached a height of some five miles. Every now and then the crews ran into violent electrical storms. One sergeant said: “Big blue flames were darting round our gun barrels. The nose of our Lancaster was covered with snow, which forced itself inside the front turret. At one point the front of the Lancaster was lighted up, and there was a bright glow round our propellers and front windows.”

The weather appears to have upset the German defences to a large extent. Searchlights were blocked by clouds, which at times were so thick that the beams could not even light them up from below. Fighters were up and some of them dropped flares along the route. These glowed feebly in the clouds, and in such conditions it was very difficult for the fighters to find our bombers. Although some were attacked, most of them got through without seeing an enemy aircraft. The fighters, too, have a wide front to defend. Berlin—bombed by Mosquitos—or half a dozen towns on or near the front, might have been the target for the night. Partly because of the weather, and partly, perhaps, because the Germans were in doubt until the last minute as to where the attack was going to fall, there were few fighters over Leipzig. One of the crews attacked last night by enemy fighters belonged to the Thunderbird Squadron of the Royal Canadian Air Force Group of the Bomber Command. They had to fight off seven separate attacks. Another Lancaster had four combats, three of them within 17 minutes. Leipzig, a city with over 700,000 inhabitants, has more than 20 firms making aircraft components. The Nazis have greatly developed the aircraft industry there in recent years, and since the war large buildings, where the Leipzig World's Fair used to be held, have been converted into workshops for the repair of Junkers aero engines. The city is also a very important railway centre, and one of the largest junctions on the'supply route to the Eastern front. Apart from the Central Railway Station, which is the largest in Europe, there are three important marshalling yards, each capable of handling thousands of wagons every 24 hours.