WAVE ON WAVE OF PLANES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 69, 21 March 1940, Page 7

WAVE ON WAVE OF PLANES

Bombs Rain On Sylt

HAVOC WROUGHT German Seaplane Stations Battered CRUSHING REVENGE (United Press Association.—Copyright.— Rec. 10.30 a.m.) LONDON, March 20. Wave after wave of R.A.F. bombers battered the Nazi seaplane base at Hornum, on the island of Sylt almost without pause from 8 p.m. on Tuesday until 3 a.m. to-day. Appearing for the hrst time to be a crushmg reply to the much exaggerated Scapa Flow raid it continued to develop long after Mr. Chamberlain had electrified the House of Commons at 1 I p.m. with the first announcement of the attack. When dawn broke it was evident that the R.A.F. had successfully pushed home the greatest and most important aerial action of the war. The Air Ministry does not reveal the number of machines employed, but it is reliably reported that they exceeded the number employed in any previous R.A.F. engagement against enemy objectives. The Air Ministry makes no exaggerated claims regarding the results of the action, but people on the Danish coast, for whom sleep was impossible while the shattering raids continued, counted 108 bombs before 2 a.m. and saw flames shooting high into the air. e

These, with terrific explosions, indicated that munition dumps had been hit. The sound of explosions was heard 35 miles away. Many observers thought the whole west coast of Germany was being raided. The sirens on Sylt wailed with clockwork regularity every 30 minutes as fresh relays of bombers dived to the attack. The precision with which the action was carried out was nothing short of devastating.