GERMANY AND ITALY ATTACKED BY R.A.F.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 283, 28 November 1940, Page 7

GERMANY AND ITALY ATTACKED BY R.A.F.

MANY TARGETS.

Enemy Merchant, Supply Ships Also Bombed. British Official Wireless. (Reed. 1.30 p.m.) RUGBY, Nov. 27. The main strength of the British bombers' attack la-st night was on armaments factories and other targets at Cologne, states an Air Ministry communique, which adds that other forces of the Bomber Command attacked railways at Berlin, an arsenal at Turin (Italy) and shipping and docks at Rotterdam, Flushing, Antwerp, Calais and Boulogne. Aircraft of the Coastal Command attacked Lorient, oil targets at Ghent and enemy aerodromes in occupied territory. and harried shipping off the Dutch coast. From all these operations five Britisli aircraft are missing. Further details of the Cologne and Rotterdam Taids are {riven by the Air Ministry news service. Cologne was attacked early in the evening. A second raid followed in the early hours of the morning and lasted from shortly before five until just before daylight. Armament works, electric power plants, goods yards, railway stations, docks and warehouses on both sides of the Rhine were targets for the R.JLM, bombers. At both times the weather was good and the sky clear. Fires were started near the Hohenzollern Bridge, and a number of explosions followed. Many high explosive and incendiary bombs weire dropped on other targets. Two bursts were seeii on armament factories, resulting in a fire which was still visible when the pilots were 50 miles nearer home. The extensive harbourage on both sides of the Rhine, with many acres of covered storage and well over 30 warehouses, was heavily raided, and 12 large explosions were seen on these targets and there were two bursts on the goods which serve the more important of these river harbours. Chain of Explosions. At Rotterdam a chain of explosions was seen over the docks, and afterwards there was a "colossal fire," which the pilots judged to be one mile by a quarter of a mile in area. A Coastal Command Hudson bomber was rocked at 1500 ft by heavy blasts when it bombed a 3000 to 5000-ton enemy supply ship off the Frisian Islands yesterday. Two hits are believed to have been made, states the Air Ministry, and debris was seen to rise after the bomb bursts. In daylight, Blenheims Carried small unite of merchant vessels near the enemy coastliney-and through a gap in a cloud struck at a hangar and at eight German aircraft on the tarmac of an aerodrome at Dunkirk. To-day another German eupply ship ■wa». torpedoed near ih® Frisian Islands 4>y * Coastal, Command Beaufort aircraft on a-roving mission. The vessel, which was of 6000 ions, listed quickly to starboard and the stern ewme out of the water with the screw the air. It is officially stated, eaya a Berlin cable message, that a number of British planes attempted to attack Berlin last night. They were prevented from penetrating the city. A few bombs fell in the outskirts and caused slight house and terrain damage.