HEAVY TOLL

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 63, Issue 218, 25 June 1943, Page 4

HEAVY TOLL

BOMBING OF THE RIJHR. REVELATION IN PHOTOGRAPHS. OBSESSION OF THE GERMANS. (Special Correspondent, N.Z.P.A.). (Rec. 12.30 p.m.) LONDON, June 24. The bombing of the Ruhr is featured by British national newspapers, which publish largo photographs of n big area of Dusseldorf showing the toll taken by Royal Air Force bombs. One caption states: “This is the most terrible picture ever published ol the destructive power of the bombing aeroplane.” The photographs were taken a week after the raid. “Some fires wore still smouldering, but still more grim is that fact that close examination shows a dead city. It was killed in n night.”

No. 75 (New Zealand) Squadron took part in the latest raid against Mulheim. Tr. addition New Zealanders were in other squadrons. “The Times” diplomatic correspondent states that, even outside the devastated areas the power of the Royal Air Force is weighing on many Goyman minds nearly as much as the strength of the Russian armies obsessed them six months ago. After hesitating whether or not to belittle the raids the authorities are now releasing news about the spreading devastation to brace the people to a sense of danger. All the emphasis is put on damage to houses and flats. By an equal distortion of facts the Ruhr and Lower Rhine are said to have little industrial value because of the dispersal of industry. Newspapers such as the Berlin “Borzen Zeitung” declare that the Royal Air Force campaign is a stab in the back—using a phrase which for 20 years covered the blockade of the last war and the disintegration at home, and is supposed to exonerate German armies from the responsibility of defeat.