RAID ON BOHLEN

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 121, 18 November 1940, Page 11

RAID ON BOHLEN

THE OIL REFINERY

EFFECTIVE BOMBING

(From "The Post's" Representative.)

LONDON, October 21

A recent raid by the New Zealand Squadron was made on an oil plant at Bohlen, to the south of Leipzig.

"It was a filthy night when we took off," one of the pilots said, "but the weather improved so quickly that I have never known visibility to be so clear on any of my previous raids. Over the Ruhr, for instance, we could see factory chimneys, railway bridges, and viaducts; we could even pick out streets in the towns over which we

"There was a barrage of fire coming up from the Ruhr, but after we had avoided it there was very little else to trouble us. We dropped some incendiaries on two industrial targets in the northern part of the- Ruhr, and then went on across the Hartz Mountains. We had a good look at Leipzig to make quite certain that it was Leipzig, and then flew south towards the oil refinery at Bohlen.

"The flare which we dropped hampered rather than helped us because of the glare of it on the slight haze on the ground. In any case, the moon was bright enough to show us all we wanted to see.

"There was a railway running right alongside our objective, and we ran practically dead over the line, dropping our bombs in one stick from south to north over the target.

"As we turned round we saw our bombs burst right on the target. There Vas no doubt about it, for about 30 seconds after they had landed there were some hefty explosions which went ,off about 100 or 200 yards apart.

"I said to the crew, 'We'll just circle round once more to see if anything else happens, and about a minute and a half later there was a colossal upheaval.

"First of all I saw a huge shower of sparks. They did not come up very far, but they spread out over a fairly large area. Then suddenly a great white column of smoke or steam shot up. It rose practically dead straight, and reached to about 6000 feet. It amazed everybody in the aircraft."