REPRISAL AGAINST REPRISAL

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 121, 18 November 1940, Page 7

REPRISAL AGAINST REPRISAL

A GERMAN THREAT

LONDON, November 17,

The German radio, announcing that 223 were killed and a large number injured in Hamburg on Friday night, described it as a reprisal for the raid on Coventry and threatened retaliation.

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raiders planted sticks of high-explosive bombs, including a number of the heaviest calibre, in many parts of the great railway yards and across a nearby dock entrance. Warehouses and sheds were hit, and one building appeared to blow up. One raider reported a terrific explosion halfway through the attack, and of many fires which were set raging one great blaze could be seen from 40 miles away. The pilot of one aircraft saw one of his heaviest bombs score a direct hit on a long building in the railway yards. ONE GREAT BLAZE. At 9 p.m., within three minutes of the departure of the last of this raiding force, the first aircraft of a second wave of attackers were over Hamburg, and the city was again echoing the sound of explosions as bombs were rained down on the great Rhenania Ossag mineral oil refinery at Grasbrook. For the next 50 minutes the oil plant was repeatedly attacked with high-explosive and incendiary bombs. Fires quickly broke out and explosions lit up the refinery buildings, and as the raid reached its climax fresh fires merged with those already burning, forming one great blaze from which the flame and smoke rose high in the sky. Two sticks of bombs which overshot the refinery were seen to burst on a nearby railway station and buildings on the north bank of the river. While this attack was in progress another strong force was concentrating on the Blohm and Voss shipyards, where-naval vessels were known to be under construction. Bombs were seen to strike the centre of the target and also burst on an adjacent railway track. Half-way through the attack one pilot counted 12 separate explosions on the target which were caused by bombs from another aircraft, and great fires were still burning furiously when the raiders left. SECOND PHASE OF ATTACK. For a few hours the city was left in peace, and then, shortly after 3 a.m., when the night's alarm seemed to be at ah end, the second phase of the attack began and the bombing continued with unabated vigour for a further two and a half hours. In perfect visibility the important electric power station at Altona was located and heavily attacked out of a cloudless sky. Heavy-calibre bombs were seen to burst on and round the power station buildings, and fires quickly followed. In another part of the city the Barbeck gasworks were subjected to an attack of 50 minutes, during which sticks of high-explosive bombs repeatedly fell across the target. One huge fire was seen to break out three minutes after a bomb of the heaviest calibre struck the gasworks, and at 5.20 a.m., as the last aircraft left the battered target, the blaze was still spreading. , Hamburg's powerful ground defences were in action constantly throughout the night, and a heavy barrage of fire from light and heavy-calibre guns greeted each sortie but could not pre- \ vent the raiders from pressing home their attacks. Fighter opposition was also encountered and a Messerschmitt 109 wtjs" shot down seven miles east of Bremerhaven. . A supplementary Air Ministry bulletin says that aerodromes were attacked at Stavanger, Doullens, Cambrai, and Bt Malo. Swordfish bombers of the Fleet Air Arm took part in the raids,