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NEW BOMBS USED

VERY HEAVY RAID ON BERLIN. MANY LARGE FIRES BURNING j TERRIFIC EXPLOSIONS CAUSED (United Press Association —Copyright.) (Rec. 9.55 a.m.) LONDON, Aug. 3. The Royal Air Force raid on Berlin was one of ‘the* heaviest yet made and many large fires were left burning says the Air Ministry. Great damage was also caused at Hamburg and Kiel and in the dock area of Clierbouig. Four of our aircraft ai'e missing. A patrol ship off the Dutch coast was attacked by Blenheims and left sinking. Berlin’s winter began in earnest last night, for there were already enough hours of darkness to bring a really strong force of four and two-engined bombers over the German capital. The German radio described this heavy attack as the work of only a few isolated aircraft. Cloudy over the North Sea, the sky

was clear over Central Germany, states the Air Ministry News Service, and though the moon was setting and gave no help to our aircraft as they , approached the target the crews drop- jped flares and saw many landmarks. They aimed the heaviest bombs at the heart of Berlin.

The attack was made from all dir:.. .. ections and as soon as the first bomb iffid fallen gunfire began. Berlin had greatly increased the number of searchlights. The pilot of a Stirling said: “W©

saw the searchlights when about 30 miles from Berlin. When we got nearer we reckoned there were about three hundred. W© sneaked in between them and arrived over the outskirts of Berlin at 1.30 a.m., and-bombed at 1.54. In that time we had made a. circular tour over most of central Berlin. There were a good number of bombers over the city at the same, time as ourselves, so the ground defences coqld not concentrate on one aircraft. While we were flying round we saw a lot of incendiary bombs go down, in the west of the city. Our bombs burst on the meeting point of two sets of railway lines. My rear-gunner said lie could see the lines quite clearly in the light of the bomb flashes. As we were coming away we saw one of the newbombs go off. ' I had never seen one before. I caught sight of the explosion out of the corner of my eye and when I first saw it thought it was a flare about 1000 feet away. Then I realised it was far below on the ground. My rear-gunner called me to tell me he had a full view. It was terrific.” One of the new bombs was carried in an aircraft piloted by a wing-com-mander Who went to Berlin last night to celebrate, as he put it, the conclusion of five months in command of the bomber squadron. A few hours after the attack he handed over to his successor and took up a new job as group captain in command of a bomber station.

The captain of a four-engined bomber—a flight lieutenant .who has' won the Distinguished Flying Cross —said he had no difficulty in finding the centre of the city. “Shells were bursting only a few feet beneath us,” he said, “but. we got through. My rear-gunner; told me he could see clouds of black smoke coming up after our bombs hip the mark. Our, flares had lighted up the buildings at which we were aim-/ ing.”

Other crews reported a fire which “heaved like a volcano,” and three / i < huge explosions with adeep red glow over the city when we were already 80 miles away.” Hamburg was as fiercely attacked as Berlin and great damage was done to the docks, railways and industries. There are good reports of a equally heavy attack on the shipbuilding yards at Kiel. In all it was a night of hard, sustained effort by the Bomber Command,; rewarded by all the familiar signs of' widespread destruction in three of the main centres of Germany’s strength.— British Official Wireless.

SIX CHILDREN KILLED.

LONDON, June 20. A boy of 14 years, Percy Mitchell, of Cheltenham, on holiday from school, went for 'a day’s outing into the country with a party of friends. During a game lie found a small practice bomb. Ho throw it into a quarry. It did not go off, so ho took it home. A few days later he and his friends took tho bomb to a piece of waste ground near their homos. They bit it with a hammer. This time it did explode. Percy, three other boys and two girls were killed. Two more children were seriously injured.

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Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/AG19410804.2.40

Bibliographic details

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 250, 4 August 1941, Page 5

Word Count
760

NEW BOMBS USED Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 250, 4 August 1941, Page 5

NEW BOMBS USED Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 250, 4 August 1941, Page 5