OIL TARGETS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 145, 20 June 1940, Page 7

OIL TARGETS.

RAIDS ON GERMANY. Destruction By Bombs In Many Attacks. RUHR, RHINE, HAMBURG. United Press Association.—Copyright. (Received noon.) LONDON, June 19. The Air Ministry states that after inactivity, due to weather conditions, Royal Air Force bombers have again attacked military objectives in Germany. The bombers dropped high explosive and incendiary bombs. I In a three-hour raid on Homburg oil ; tanks many fires were started, culminating in a conflagration leaving a column of smoke of 2000 ft. Bombers repeatedly hit fuel installations at Gelsenkirchen, -six miles east of Essen, setting ablaze oil tanks and a refinery and demolishing buildings and railway lines and a junction. Two bombers received hits, but returned home safely. Fires at Wanne and Eickel, near Bochum, east of Essen, were still burning after two hours. The raiders attacked large oil stores at Hamburg and at Dollbergen, which is east of Hanover. The whole target at Dollbergen was a mass of flames. Huge Hamburg Oil Store Ablaze. Bombers hit and set fire to one of the largest oil etores in north-west Germany, at Hamburg. A violent explosion occurred at this target a full minute after a salvo of bombs had burst. The bombers attacked marshalling yards and busy railway junctions from Hurnm, in the north, to Aachen, and along the Rhine from Duisberg, in the Ruhr, to Coblenz, registering important hits at Hamm, Rheydt and Cologne. The raiders also bombed three German aerodromes where night flying was in progress, and bombed the Amsterdam airport at Schiphol, hitting hangars and shooting down a German 'plane. ■ Two British 'planes are missing. The R.A.F. wirelessed that 'planes had dropped 250 bombs in ten minutes among oil tanks in Bremen. The raids lasted from midnight to dawn. • R.A.F. Coastal Command aircraft attacked an enemy seaplane base at Hclder, on the Dutch coast this morning. Large fires were started among the buildings.