AIR SUPREMACY

Evening Star, Issue 23834, 14 March 1941, Page 7

AIR SUPREMACY

CRUCIAL BATTLE BEGINS UNPRECEDENTED FEROCITY LONDON, March 13. (Received March 14, at 12.35 p.m.) The long-awaited and possibly crucial spring battle of the air began last night with unprecedented ferocity. Britain hit Germany with the weightiest attack ever undertaken by the R.A.F. The cities attacked included ' Berlin, which had its first raid for 82 days, Bremen, Hamburg, and Bremerhaven. The Luftwaffe attempted _a similar onslaught, and chose Liverpool as its main target. The attack was prolonged and heavy, but the Germans lost no fewer than nine planes without achieving any results comparable with the magnitude of their effort. The casualties were comparatively light. The Germans made a wide-scale attack on the Merseyside area. Liverpool was the centre of the attack. The first raiders arrived soon after dark and were overhead every few minutes for several hours, flying so high that their - - -engines could be heard only' faitftty. The raiders propped bombs indiscriminately. High explosives shattered many houses. A number of people were trapped under the debris. Three firewatchers, three air raid wardens, and two policemen were buried when a bomb hit a school. A number of auxiliary firemen were killed / when a heavycalibre bomb exploded! in the centre of a fire they were, fighting among commercial buildings. Fire-watchers dealt . effectively with the showers of incendiary bombs, but some fires flared up. NAZI VERSIONS. A German communique states that throughout the whole of last night, which was moonlit, several hundred bombers in a series of waves attacked harbour works at Liverpool and Birkenhead “ with very great success.” The , . Berlin News Agency says: “ The destruction of Liverpool will exceed Coventry. Grain warehouses at Birkenhead particularly suffered. A large mill was severely damaged, and slaughter houses and cold storage depots on the Merseyside were destroyed.” The German communique adds : “ The enemy dropped a large number of explosives and fire bombs in the North German coastal region and Berlin, and damaged a number of buildings and residential quarters, including churches and hospitals. There was inconsiderable damage in one industrial plant. A factory at Bremen was damaged. Twenty-four were killed' and 64 were injured iu the raids. An attache at the Dnited States Embassy in Berlin states that the American Consulate at Hamburg was hit, but there were no , casualties.” AN EPIC ATTACK PRESSED HOME THROUGH CURTAIN OF FIRE DARING WORK AT CLOSE RANGE SEVERAL HOURS OVER CAPITAL (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, March 13. (Received March 14, at noon.) Further accounts of last night’s heavy attack on Berlin show that the R.A.F. met and overcame all the defences the Nazis were able to put up, and reached the objective through a continuous curtain of fire. The first bombers reached Berlin at about 11.30, and the attacks lasted l for several hours. OSie crews were able to pick out streets, railways, and lakes around the city almost' as if they had been flying in the daytime. They could easily see for 50 miles. Despite the barrage, several aircraft spent a long time over the city. One pilot whose aircraft was caught in a cone of searchlights for half an hour said it was the longest half-hour he . jbad ever known. He had been hover- • In« sound the outskirts of Berlin and]

had pinpointed his position. He then started to fly across the city. The anti-aircraft fire grew fiercer, bursts were all round, clouds of smoke seemed to fill the air, the light of the searchlights posed the shadow of the aircraft against the clouds of smoke so that at times it seemed' as if there were three or four other aircraft flying in formation around it. Fragments of shells hit the wings and under-carriage, but nothing prevented the pilot and bomb-aimer from completing their task. They saw theii bombs burst on the target, the centre of Berlin. Many pilots reported immense fires in various parts of the city, and the glow ' n th® sty cou 'd seen for 100 miles on the way home. One pilot attacked a railway junction and saw incendiaries hit the track. Soon afterwards there was a tremendous explosion, followed by small explosions for 15 minutes. ' Another pilot swooped down through the barrage, machine-gun-ning his objective from just above the rooftops, and then flew on to attack the barracks outside the city from the same low level. FROM HEIGHT OF FIFTY FEET MILITARY BARRACKS SHOT UP {British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, March 13. (Received March 14, at noon.) A target in Hamburg situated in the dock area was repeatedly hit by heavy bombs. During these attacks one of our aircraft exinguished searchlights by machine-gun fire and shot up military barracks from a height of 60ft. One Messersohmitt 110 which attempted to interfere in these operations was shot down. ! WAR SUPPLIES FACTORY INFLAMMABLE MATERIAL ABLAZE i (By Radio.) LONDON, March 13. At Bremen the main target of the Royal Air Force was a big factory engaged on war supplies. A direct hit fell in the middle of the works, followed by a tremendous explosion, and great fires were started as inflammable material caught ablaze.