RUHR BLASTED

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 221, 18 September 1942, Page 3

RUHR BLASTED

BIG RAID BY R.A.F. Large Fires Started In Nazi War Plants Rec. 1.30 p.m. LONDON, Sept. 17. An Air Ministry communique states that last night a very strong force of our bombers attacked the Ruhr. Many fires, some verv large, were left burning. At dusk last evening light bornbers attacked industrial objectives in the Wiesbaden area. From these operations 39 of our bombers are missing. The loss of 39 aircraft is the heaviest since June 25, when 52 aircraft were lost in the 1000-bomber raid on Bremen. Last night's raid was the ninth heavy attack in the first 16 nights of September. Commenting on the cumulative effects of these raids, the Daily Telegraph says the congestion of manufacture and coal and iron mines in the Ruhr and the Rhineland has hardly a parallel in any other country. No dispersal can alter the fact that the efficiency of this region is indispensable to the military power of Germany. A raider last night bombed a north Scottish island. Four people were injured. The Berlin radio claims that the Luftwaffe destroyed barracks at Fair Isle, between the Orkneys and the Shetlands, and other military installations were considerably damaged. Other planes bombed Harwich and Colchester, and residential blocks at Rye and set fire to the railway station at Eastbourne. German planes appeared over Britain at dawn, noon and dusk, but did not venture beyond the coastline. The Focke-Wulfs at dawn damaged shops and houses in a south-east coast town and gunned the streets, killing two people and injuring several. Two more Focke-Wulfs at noon raided another town, killing six and injuring several others. A raider at dusk dived on the east coast and used its machine-guns, but there were no casualties. German long-range guns in the afternoon fired five shells across the straits into the Dover area. Berlin announced that the R.A.F. bombed the Rhineland and Westphalia last night.