BERLIN BATTERED

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21248, 19 October 1940, Page 7

BERLIN BATTERED

EFFECT OF AIR RAIDS FACTORIES WRECKED RAILWAYS DAMAGED (Omclal Wireless) (Received Oct. 19, 11 a.m.) RUGBY, Oct. 18 From reliable neutral sources further reports have been received which make plain the effectiveness of the Royal Air Force offensive against military objectives in Germany. In Berlin, according to one neutral observer, the damage was extensive. Several factories employed in the production of vital war material are said to have been partially wrecked, the general post office almost gutted, and some of the city’s main gasworks badly damaged. A fire started by Royal Air Force bombers during an attack on the Lehrter railway station and goods yards apparently burned for many hours. Smoke from it covered a large part of the capital. Traffic was further interrupted by raids on railway sidings at Potsdamer and the Anhalter station. The damage done here, combined with that inflicted on other important lines of communication outside the city, has seriously affected the German transport system. One traveller, setting out from Berlin for a town in the Rhineland, had to spend three days instead of the customary 12 hours on the journey. Much changing was necessary and at times the passengers had to walk some distance from one train to the next. Other travellers report that they had to change more than a dozen times on what previously was a straightforward trip, and even then there were long delays outside some of the stations. The transport on the German waterways, too, has been dislocated. The traffic, for instance, on the Miteland Canal was interrupted for five days after the destruction of two sluice gates on the DortmundEms Canal. The east wall immediately north of the old aqueduct has been broken and there are two fresh bomb craters on the east embankment. Damage to Harbour Other evidence of the success attending the attacks on this target is found in the damage dene to harbour and loading installations and barges moored near. Confirmation of the damage done to petrol and synthetic oil plants at Politz, near Stettin, have also been received together with the news about a tanker which had to postpone its visit to Stettin as the petrol load which it was to have shipped was not available. From the same source it is understood that on the night of October two large ships, fully loaded with grain, received a direct hit and caught fire and were still burning two days later.

At Hamburg during another raid five ships are said to have been sunk in the harbour.

At the time this news was gathered it was further seen that there were only seven out of 75 cranes undamaged and one was closed for some weeks after a heavy raid. According to another neutral report in the Rhineland the Westphalia electricity works were so badly damaged that it will be some time before they can come to full operation again.

News from another source records that the output of the Peutz motor car factory at Bremen has been greatly reduced by bombs, and at Wismar during an attack on an aircraft factory one hangar was completely gutted and ail the aircraft inside destroyed. Invasion Plans Interrupted There is evidence, too, of the Royal Air Force’s determined attacks on the invasion ports. One report states that on September 16 many German troops embarked but later were taken off the ships. The invasion plans were not adopted because of the sustained offensive by the Royal Air Force, whose extraordinary accuracy in bombing has incidentally been much admired by the Dutch. During a recent attack on a factory in Holland a British bomber was seen circling over the target for half-an-hour before making an attack. Then a single bomb was dropped, scoring a bull’s-eye, wrecking the drafting dept and the main machine shops. MUNITIONS PRODUCTION BIG INCREASE IN BRITAIN FAR BEHND GERMANY ECONOMIST URGES SPEED (United Press Assn.—Elec. Tel. Copyilffht) LONDON, Oct. 18 The British economist Sir Walter Layton, in a talk to American businessmen last night, said that since the blitzkreig began Britain’s munitions production had risen by more than one-quarter. Britain’s armament production, however, was still far behind that of Germany. Sir Walter said Britain and the United States must act with speed il Nazism was to be defeated. With the help of the United States Britain must build up the greatest air armada the world had ever seen. He read a letter from the British Ambassador. the Marquess of Lothian, who said that the only way the United States could keep the wave of Nazism from her shores was to preserve the key positions of Britain, Gibraltar, South Africa, Singapore and Australasia.