HORRIBLE HOURS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 November 1943, Page 4

HORRIBLE HOURS

SUFFERED IN BERLIN ALL DISTRICTS SUFFER DAMAGE. ESTIMATE OF 10,000 KILLED & INJURED. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.40 a.m.) LONDON, November 23. Last night’s raid against Berlin was heavier than any experienced even by Hamburg. A report from Zurich states that ali districts in Berlin, as well as its suburbs, suffered damage. Devastation was particularly heavy in the centre of Berlin, especially near the Unter Den Linden, Alexanderplatz and Friedrichstrasse. The Stockholm “Afton’ Tidningen” gives a preliminary estimate of 10.000 persons killed or injured in the raid. The Berlin correspondent of the “Aftonbladet,” in a dispatch today, says; “We had horrible hours. Berlin burned all night. Great sections of dwelling quarters and buildings in the city are still burning today. The city is covered with a great black cloud of smoke. Several embassies and legations in the diplomatic quarter were burned to the ground. The , ‘Aftonbladet's’ Berlin office was destroyed. A number of suburbs were badly damaged, including Siemenstadt, where the great Siemens Electrical Works are situated, also Spandau, Wilmersdorf, Neukoeln, Lightenberg and Pankow. Many of these areas had been hard hit in previous raids. Transport in many sections of Berlin has broken down and electrical and gas services have been interrupted.” A Press Association correspondent at a R.A.F. base said: “Berlin was a great sea of flames and explosions, which the returning planes saw for seventy miles through solid cloud. The clouds were so thick that the Germans apparently were unable to get a single night fighter off the ground, but the ground defences threw up a great flak barrage.”

The Press Association’s aviation correspondent estimates that with last night’s raid, about 10,000 tons of bombs have been dropped on Berlin this year. GREAT VICTORY WON. Lancasters, Stirlings and Halifaxes all went to Berlin, a British Official Wireless message reports. After the raid all the crews were confident, of the results. None had any doubt that they had won a great victory. They had beaten the night fighter squadrons and also the massed batteries of anti-air-craft guns which served as Berlin’s second line of defence. Their casualties are well below the average even for attacks on much easier targets. It was another cloud cover, attack like that of four nights ago. Both on the outward and homeward journeys the bombers flew for hundreds of miles over an unbroken sea of cloud. Over Berlin, there , was ah occasional gap through which the crews caught a glimpse of the ground—the vivid cured lights of marker bombs, a rising pillar of black smoke, a red patch of fire. But the bomb-aimers were not looking for gaps. Pathfinders which were out in force, dropped in a dense concentration and unbroken succession of target indicators and pyrotechnic flares from start to finish. The ene'fny guns were shooting at the flares as they fell, but nothing stopped the Pathfinders from building up ah unmistakable target . of coloured lights and keeping it thick throughout the attack, for just over half an hour, from eight o’clock. Soon the clouds began to reflect the glow of fires below ana even through cloud several thousand feet thick the light was so bright that the crews saw each other’s bombs as they fell.

Twenty minutes after the first bombs dropped, hundreds of the crews saw one of the most violent explosions ever reported from a German target, A navigator “Everything suddenly went all white. The brilliance stayed in —e sky for a long time and then coloured to a reddish glow, which went on as long as we were over the target. It was like a terrific sunset. “The attack was so well concentrated that while we were over Berlin we saw only one flash of a 4,000-pounder cutside the main target area fires. We saw about 50 block-busters go off in that time.’’ , - ~ Very few night fighters were over •Berlin and the Germans were forced to ' let loose a great barrage which had Jtfeen the main defence of the capital before modern 1:301103 forced the enemy ■To use so great a part of his air force 1 .to protect his cities.. Searchlights were blocked by the clouds and without any hope of the bombers being coned, the gunners could only blaze away at all the sky above Berlin. There was enough heavy flak, however, to bring shells near many bombers. Single night fighters which were over Berlin while the attack was on had to face their own barrage: As during last week’s attack on Berlin, most of the anti-air- ’ craft batteries on the route were in action.