THRILLING AIR RAID

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21212, 7 September 1940, Page 10

THRILLING AIR RAID

ATTACKS ON BOULOGNE HARBOUR GALLANTRY OF THE BRITISH FLIERS TERRIFIC BOMBARDMENT CHAIN OF FLAMES COfficial Wireless) (Received Sept. 7, 3.15 p.m.) RUGBY, September 6 Three waves of Coastal Command aircraft, Blenheims, Beauforts and Albacores, opened an attack on Boulogne Harbour last night. The Beauforts went in first, and their salvoes started fires, which lit up the harbour for the next wave composed of Fleet Air Arm Albacores. They started more fires and scored hits on important targets near the Loubet Basin. Then came the biggest attack of all from the Blenheims. Some of them were circling outside the harbour ready to swoop while the Albacores were dropping their bombs. Flares from the Blenheims, combined with searchlights and the flashes of anti-aircraft gunfire, illuminated the whole waterfront and town beyond. A line of buildings on the Quai Gambetta was set on fire, and a few' minutes later there was a vast yellow flash in the midst of the flames, followed by a continuous orange glare. Another attack by the Blenheims, again on the Loubet Basin, started another great fire. As fast as one aircraft started fires another came in and bombed the burning area again, so that after three hours’ bombardment the docks were still girdled by an almost unbroken chain of flames. It is reported in the press that so heavy was the attack on Boulogne that residents on the south-east coast of England were kept awake by the sound of explosions. One resident said: “It went on hour after hour until daybreak. Every window’ in the town here rattled.”

Double Crossing of Alps British heavy bombers on Thursday night flew 1600 miles, including a double crossing oS the Alps, to renew their attack on the great Fiat aeroplane and engine factory at Turin. Heavy damage was caused, and though the raiders were subjected to intense opposition from the ground defences all returned safely to England before dawn on Friday. Other forces of heavy bombers, penetrating deep into Germany, attacked objectives as far apart as the Baltic coast in the north to the Black Forest in the south. Synthetic oil plants at Politz, near Stettin, were heavily bombed for the second night in succession. The oil storage installation at Regensburg, near the former Czechoslovak border, and oil tanks at Hamburg were also among the night’s objectives in Germany. In the Turin raid the first bombs were dropped shortly after midnight, when a raider located extensive Fiat engine works by the light of parachute flares. The first stick of high-explosive bombs straddled a large building, ! which the bomb-aimer believed to be the main power house.

A second salvo struck a car-test-ing track laid out on the flat roof' of the main building, and explosions were quickly followed by an outbreak of fire.