GASWORKS BOMBED

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 76, 26 September 1940, Page 6

GASWORKS BOMBED

"BIG SHOW" OVERBERLIN

young piLorsl(^aw

SUCCESSFUL RAID

(British Official Wireless.) RUGBX; September 24. Broadcasting tonight;, a 21-year-old bomber pilot of the Koyal Air Force described his experiences in last night's air raids in atjd round Berlin. He blew up part, of a gasworks in a north-east district of the city. "This was my'twerity-fifth raid over Germany, and it was about the most successful," he said. "Our squadron had been over "Berlin before, but I hadn't. They had sent me to Hamm instead, and my crew were a bit fed up about that. We were told at about 5 o'clock yesterday that the Berlin^' show was on, and we knew it was going to be On a pretty large scale. '.

"Our particular target was a large gasworks north-east of Berlin, about four or five miles from the centre of the city. There is a railway running, right alongside it, a large open space to the east, and a lake about a milf to the north-east of it, and those were our three landmarks. -.

"As we neared Berlin a cloud be-1 neath us closed up, but over the city? itself it was quite clear; in fact, the conditions were pretty well ideal for; night bombing. .The trip- out was entirely without incident, arid we were absolutely on our course because through gaps in the cloud we were1 able to pin-point ourselves on a nuiriber of places along the route. There was some gunfire around towns to the south, of course, but nobody bothered us. ' . ■ ;.".. ,-.,.' ■ "The first sign of any real activity; came as we approached Berlin. "We had got within 20 miles of it when suddenly five flares. appeared in the sky. They were being dropped by other bombers that had got there before us, and no sooner had that happened than up went a barrage. As; we. got nearer the number of flares., increased, and I counted 10, but as we were coming away -after the bombing there were well over 20. QUICKLY ON THE TARGET. I "We could judge, roughly the shape of the city from, the gunfire round the outskirts even before we got overj Berlin, and the flares made it light enough to pick out important features. We could see some of the others bombing;:, knd to the north-east .there was a small, chain; of fires burning! I said % mys navigator, 'We will make; for thosfe" and see what is to be seen there.' "As we approached we could see that these fires were just a little sou-th of our actual target; that was a bit .pi luck fjor us.Xas lfr meant that : .we weTe; able to imake-p^ur* attack' in the> : Vctual run-up on the^ target. One usually has to make a dummy run first, but on this occasion we were able to bomb the first time with only a few minor corrections. "At first we thought we had. missed, because we saw only normal bombing bursts, but about 10 seconds;later,there was a violent explosion, in;;the centre! of the stick. I think -the wifeless operator noticed it first; he .was looking out through tti&)a&6sso£^®ad he called out, 'It's a |ie^u^H|fe;sßiß^n everything up!' He^said saw a flash, and, otf fire seemed,to cpm^ ]i^;3n; I±ier;4ir. "All this time*v^>tfi^4ie^ a certain amount-^:f^:3Ei^)ih;-heavy guns on the gfc^^:b^-nb^hing:to worry us much, thapg^ away through the cloud we saw anoth^of oiir :bbmbess caught in searchlightsi-9h!d': comeunder very neavy fire/- As^ve^left'we 1 could' see othefe; people!i :b<Hnbirig out' fires. There were pra'btic^.lly; continuoa^s salvos of b^bmbs fallifif *in various parts of the city;';-' ■ . ;;-:;'

"'lt was the biggest show I have ever seen. The bomb-aimer-said he counted ast least 20 fires burning, and you could: still see them'3s miles away, after wfyich we ran into the cloud again and our view was obscured. "We were the secsond back to the base on ourreturn, but all the others returned .within. an hoi£r or so and everyone reported that he had dropped his bombs."