R.A.F. Attack On Duisburg

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23947, 14 May 1943, Page 5

R.A.F. Attack On Duisburg

RUHR TRANSPORT CENTRE

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright)

(Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, May 13. “Last night the Bomber Command made its heaviest attack of the war, with Duisburg as ..... IL L , .—^ the objective,” reports the Air Ministry. “Visibility was good, and preliminary reports indicate that the results were excellent.

“Thirty-four of our aircraft are missing.” Before last night the heaviest raid of the war was the 1000bomber raid on Cologne in May last year. Duisburg, with a population of 500,000, is the largest inland port in Europe and a key communications centre for Germany’s war industries in the Ruhr. In Duisburg itself are iron and steel works, U-boat factories, and factories making aero-engine parts. The air correspondent of the Press Association says that the raid was the heaviest ever for tonnage of bombs dropped, but not necessarily in the number of aeroplanes used. It was the sixtieth Royal Air Force raid on Duisburg. “The losses were not heavy in view of the very large forces employed,” says the British United Press. “We must .be approaching the 2000 tons mark in the loads dropped on German towns in one attack, even if that mark has not been already reached.”

Duisburg, objective of the Royal Air Force in its heaviest raid of the war, Is on the Rhine, a few miles south-west of Essen. The Berlin radio announced that British bombers attacked western Germany last night. High explosives and incendiaries damaged buildings and residential quarters. The radio claimed that at least 15 raiders were shot down. A British Air Ministry communique says that Coastal Command torpedocarrying Hampdens, escorted by Beaufighters, last evening hit and left sinking an enemy supply ship off the Norwegian coast. No British aeroplane* are missing.