Heart of City Attacked Again

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 76, 26 September 1940, Page 11

Heart of City Attacked Again

HEAVY BLOWS AT INDUSTRY

(British Official Wireless.) (Received September 26. 11 a.m.) RUGBY. September, 25. A number of military objectives in the heart of Berlin were singled out and attacked on Tuesday night, when Boyal Air Force heavy bombers, on the second night in succession, carried war into the German capital in a raid lasting two and a half hours. The raid began shortly after 10.30 p.m., says an Air Ministry bulletin, when the first attacker, evading the intense barrage of the city's ground defences, located and bombed the great Siemens and Halse factories, which produce a large proportion of the electrical equipment used by the German armed forces. Great fires were seen to break out in the target area after the bombing1. Berlin's electric power transformer and switching station at Friederichsuelde, supplying most of the city's industrial current, was attacked at 1 a.m. today. Sticks of high-ex-plosive bombs were seen to burst across the plant. A blast furnace in a south-east suburb was struck, causing large fires. Two sticks dropped across a canal bridge two miles to the south-west of Berlin's main airport at Tempelhof.

In the extensive Royal Air Force operations against the enemy on Tuesday night, which included the long raid on Berlin as well as a continuation of the systematic attacks of

recent nights on enemy invasion ports, only two of the aircraft employed were lost.

Finkenheer's electric power station near Frankfurt on Oder, more than 300 miles from Germany's western frontier, was located half an hour before midnight and was twice attacked with sticks of high-explo-sive bombs, which were seen to burst in and around the target. A main railway line near Magdeburg and a rail depot and distributing centre at Hamrn were also attacked and a number of explosions on the main sidings and sheds at Hamm were followed by a line of fires. Goods yards at Brussels were also attacked.

Hanover aerodrome was bombed from a high level and at Haag, to the north of Emden, where night flying by the enemy was in progress, a British raider came down to 2000 feet to drop his bombs on a hangar and runway. A flare revealed the wreckage of a hangar destroyed in a previous attack.

While long-distance raids on Germany were in progress, other strong forces of bombers, operating at short range, kept up their nightly hammering of the enemy's invasion ports from Hamburg to Le Havre! Fires were started at Hamburg docks. Bombs straddled shipping bases at Cherbourg and at the Dutch port of Delfzijl. At Ostend repeated hits were scored on basins and on harbour jetties. Calais docks, the target for one of the night's heaviest bombardments, were subjected to a series of attacks lasting nearly seven hours. Barges lying alongside the quays were hit. Fires and explosions were seen in many parts of the harbour. Before 4 o'clock on Wednesday morning more than 30 fires were counted burning within the docks. At Le Havre the raids began at 10 p.m. and continued at intervals until 5 a.m. on Wednesday. Lock gates were hit, warehouses were set alight, | and many other fires were started. A violent explosion marked a direct hit on what appeared to be a harbour power station. • , Strong opposition from the ground defences was encountered at Boulogne, j Direct hits were claimed here on ! the wall of one dock and on the jetties between basins and in many parts of the outer harbour. A particularly big explosion followed by a fire was seen to occur in No. 7 dock. The German long-range gun positions at Cap Gris-Nez were also attacked shortly before dawn and numbers of hits were registered on new emplacements under construction.