HEAVY RAID ON KIEL BASE

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23915, 6 April 1943, Page 5

HEAVY RAID ON KIEL BASE

R.A.F. Out In Great

Strength

FORTRESSES BOMB RENAULT WORKS

(N.Z, Press Association—Copyright)

(Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, April 5. “Aircraft of the Bomber Command were over Germany in great strength last night to attack the naval base and shipbuilding yards at Kiel,” says an Air Ministry communique. “Heavy cloud made full observation of the results impossible, but large fires were seen in the target area. “Twelve bombers are missing.” This was the seventy-first attack on Kiel by the Royal Air Force, and the first since last October. A large force of American Flying Fortresses successfully attacked the Renault factories at Billancourt, on the outskirts of Paris yesterday. The weather was clear. The target was heavily and accurately bombed and was left on fire. Strong opposition by enemy fighters was encountered by the bombers as they returned, and 25 fighters were destroyed by the Fortresses. The final total will not be announced until all combat reports have been assessed. Over the French coast Royal Air Force, Dominion, and Allied fighters covering the withdrawal of the bombers joined in the combats and destroyed eight enemy aeroplanes. Four Allied bombers and seven fighters are missing. “The Germans threw swarms of their crack yellow-nosed Messerschmitts into the air combats which developed after the United States Air Force raid on Billancourt, where the Fortresses dropped their loads practically down the smoke-stacks,” says the British United Press correspondent at a Fortress base somewhere in England. He adds: “There appeared to be training aeroplanes also among the attackers which assailed the Fortresses for half an hour after the target was left. The pilots agreed that the opposition was the stillest so far put up against them.” The Berlin radio said that American bombers attacked the town area of Paris and dropped bombs in residential areas, killing more than 100 persons. „ , ‘‘Fighter Command and Bomber Command aircraft carried out largescale operations yesterday over northern France and the Low Countries,” says the Air Ministry. ‘‘Bombers escorted by fighters attacked an aerodrome at Caen, and railway yards atSt.Bneuc. Fighter-bombers bombed the docks at Dieppe and the railway yards at Abbeville. Other fighters made covering and diversionary sweeps and attacked enemy coastal shipping. Three enemy fighters were destroyed in these operations, from which two bombers and five fighters are missing. “Coastal Command aircraft made several attacks yesterday on enemy shipping off the Norwegian coast. At least two ships were hit with torpedoes and one of them sank. One Coastal Command aircraft is missing.” Krupp Works Hit

On Saturday night the Bomber Command dropped bombs on Essen and again hit the great Krupp works, says the Air Ministry News Service. At one stage of the attack six 40001b bombs were falling every minute. Within half an hour a huge pall of smoke had rolled over the city and many fires were burning fiercely underneath it. Many crews spoke of a tremendous explosion which was “just as if somebody had thrown gallons of petrol on a fire.” There were two such explosions. Photographs taken during the attack show that the vast Krupp works were hit again. They were badly damaged during the two attacks last month, but there are 800 acres of them and the Germans had made an obvious effort to save the rest. There were more guns, more searchlights, and more night fighters defending the city than ever before.

A pilot who has taken part in 28 sorties over Germany said he had “never seen ‘a more spectacular defence.” The target area was covered with glittering white lights from incendiaries. The searchlights were working in cones of about 30 each. As soon as a cluster spotted an aircraft it held on to it with its beam, and then another cone would take it on. It was as if the aeroplanes were being tossed from one to another.

The Berlin radio says that strong formations of British bombers on Saturday night attacked Western Germany and damaged residential quarters. The population suffered casualties. An official analysis of the mounting air offensive shows that more than 8000 tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs were dropped on Germany by the Royal Air Force last month and that in North Africa 284 enemy aircraft were destroyed for the loss of 110 Allied aeroplanes. Over Britain and Northern Europe 96 enemy aeroplanes were destroyed while the Royal Air Force lost 190 in all operations of all commands.