BLITZ AGAINST LONDON

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 December 1940, Page 7

BLITZ AGAINST LONDON

TERRIFIC HAMMERING HEAVY DAMAGE-MANY DEATHS R.A.F. HAVOC IN GERMANY [BY CABLE. —PRESS ASSN. —COPYRIGHT.]

LONDON, December 9. After its' concentrated attacks on provincial areas, the German Air Force last night directed the main force of its raids against London and the surrounding districts. The raids, which followed two days of quietness, were severe, although not as violent as those which were launched against the capital in September. The raiders followed the course to kvhich Londoners have become accustomed. That is, they came flying up the Thames in waves and signalled their arrival by dropping incendiary bombs. One of the remarkable features of the raid-was the speed with which, fires were extinguished. The London fire service have at all times shown admirable efficiency in dealing with outbreaks following bombing, but they excelled themselves last night, and most of the fires were extinguish- i ed before they attained any size. I As the night wore on, it was in- < creasingly clear that the Luftwaffe! was concentrating its utmost fury on; the capital. The raid reached full blitz proportions as midnight approached. One heavy bomb illuminated four hundred square yards of the busy area like day as a dazzling flash, preceded an ear-splitting crash and the tell-tale rumble of falling masonry. Reinforced concrete buildings Were rocked and windows ejected, glass across the roads. j One of several high explosives in one London district fell near a building where night workers were blown I off their chairs. Lights were extinguished and papers were scattered across the desks. Forty bombs fell simultaneously in the same area. A bomb hit an ambulance station and high-explosives hit seven hospitals, four churches, a convent, three vicarages, and also an A.R.P. post, causing casualties. They also demolished a number of houses. A time-bomb considerably damaged the nurses’ home of a children’s hospital. A shelter was hit in the Thames Estuary, and those inside were trapped but dug out. It was a real night of terror with no relief even after midnight. More and more streets revealed the ravages of

high explosives in wrecked buildings and road surfaces carpeted with broken glass. Ambulances sent the glass splashing like water from the roadway to the footpaths as they bore the victims to refuges. All London had gone to ground except the volunteer services, who were braving the utmost perils, and newspapermen and other night . workers who were carrying on in spite of the, horror from the skies. I London was carrying on as usual! this'morning, though many ' people went to work in the debris of newlybombed buildings. One German fighter-bomber which was'shot down yesterday, crashed into the sea at 500 miles an hour, after a chase of 440 miles by three Spitfires. It was brought down by a Brisbane pilot, who had already destroyed 13 enemy aircraft. The pilot said he had chased the German machine at 400 miles an hour, and then got him alone, 40 miles out to sea.

OFFICIAL REPORTS. - LONDON, December 9. An Air Ministry communique says: “During last night the enemy heavily bombed London and surrounding districts and caused many fires which were put out while the attack was m progress. Considerable damage was done : to buildings and houses, and a number of persons were killed and injured. Bombs were dropped in many districts between London and the south and east coasts. A few in southern England caused fires and damaged property. The number of casualties in these areas was not large. Two raiders were destroyed. From Berlin, it is reported that officials said that bombers from Belgium, Holland and France carried out the heaviest attack on London since September. Officials claim that 700 tons of explosives .were dropped on London last night, and eighty to one hundred thousand incendiary bombs.

HOSPITAL VICTIMS. MANY DWELLINGS DESTROYED. (Recd. December 10, 12.35 p.m.) LONDON, December 9. Daylight found London wearing new scars which- were invisible from a j distance, because of. the heavy cloak; of smoke from extinguished fires, but which on close approach, revealed the dislocation wrought by last night’s terrific hammering. Earlier reports gave general details of the destruction to buildings, but after mid-day reports were confined almost exclusively to the tragically high mortality list. . The Germans, as previously, showed special accuracy in attacking hospitals, of which those damaged included a general hospital, and a special women’s hospital. Three night porters were trapped under the debris, and are believed to be dead, when a block of hospital buildings was cut in half by explosive bombs. Two other deaths occurred in the same hospital. A number of elderJy patients died from shock when heavy high-explosive bombs fell in the grounds of another hospital, considerably damaging the buildings. Two bombs scored direct hits op unoccupied parts of yet another hospital. Rows of once smart suburban dwellings lay in unrecognisable heaps of ashes and rubble. Cratered roads necessitated a diversion of the traffic in some areas. Four men sheltering in the archway on a school playground were killed. A member of the A.R.P. was fatally injured. Bombs demolished shops and dwellings in the same area, killing a number of people. Rescuers were .still searching, twelve hours afterwards, for the missing. Thirty were sent to hospital. Many are feared to have, been buried" under a block of middle-class flats, demolished by a bomb. .Many casualties occurred in the poorer part of one district, which .was severely battered. Two big storage depots were burnt out. A. shopping district in the Thames estuary suf-

fered heavily. A mother and two children aged thirteen and four respectively, and a woman lodger were killed, and .the father sent to hospital, when a bomb destroyed a house in the Home Counties.

Twenty-seven were killed and others injured when a stick of high explosives hit a row of cottages in an East Anglan village. Four were killed and one injured in south-east England, when attempting to examine a time bomb, which exploded. The Berlin News Agency says that within two hours after the attack on London', 40 extensive fires could be observed in the Government quarter and adjacent districts. The areas suffering most were northward of the Thames, comprising Poplar and Bethnal Green. | GERMAN VERSION. (Recd. Dec. 10, 11.45 a.m.). ’ LONDON, December 9. i A German communique says: As a reprisal for R.A.F. attacks on western Germany, qur Air Force carried out; large-scale attacks throughout the: night on London. ! j Solitary British planes bombed Dus- , seldorf and Munich. Nine were killed i and 41 wounded. No damage' was' done to military targets. j QUIET- DAY FOLLOWS. RUGBY, December 9. Soon after dusk to-night, the Air Ministry and Home Security issued a communique on enemy air activities ovex- Britain during the daylight hours, which said “There is nothing to report.” ENEMY BOMBER LOST. RUGBY, December 9. It is officially stated that R.A.F. fighters shot down an enemy bomber • in the North Sea, this afternoon.

R.A.F. ATTACKS. ANOTHER BUSY NIGHT. . RUGBY,-December 9. An Air Ministry communique states: R.A.F. bombers last night renewed the attack on the industrial and military targets in the Dusseldorf area. Other aircraft bombed the 'submarine base at Lorient, and shipping and harbour installations at Bordeaux and Brest. Other targets included the ports of Flushing, Dunkirk, Gravelines, and several enemy aerodromes. Two of our planes are missing.

HUGE FIRES AT DUSSELDORF. LONDON, December 9. ‘ The Royal Air Force continued its attacks against Germany last night qwith raids on submarine bases and i aerodromes in enemy occupied terriitory. Objectives in the Ruhr district were also attacked. On Saturday night also, the Royal Air Force carried out extensive raids on important industrial and military targets in Germany and occupied territory. At Dusseldorf, where many of Germany’s-heavy industries are concentrated, a heavy attack was made on •works engaged in making aeroplane •propellers. The first raiders started | four large fires, but these were only a foretaste of what was to come. Later arrivals dropped 4000 incendiary bombs, to say nothing of a large number of high-explosive bombs. The ’first fires rapidly grew until the eni tire works were encircled by a wall of flame, which the members of one bomber crew, well experienced in raids over Germany, described as the largest fire they had ever seen.

EFFECTIVE WORK. RUGBY, December 9. Describing the Dusseldorf raid, the Air Ministry news service states: Over the city there were layers of drifting cloud, but beneath them visibility was excellent. Bridges across the Rhine were clearly distinguished. One crew, although bombing from a height of several thousand feet, was actually able to see flames streaming from the windows of a factory in the area of the chief target. This was again the Press and Walbwerke blast furnaces and steel works, which manufacture railway and shipping equipment, among other war material.

One aircraft, ten minutes after bombing the steel works,, dived down upon' a supply train, near Gledern, north-west of Dusseldorf, and ma-chine-gunned it from a height of 50 feet. The raid at Dusseldorf began shortly after 7 p.m. Bright moonlight helped the navigators, and three large fires and many small ones followed the bursting of the first bombs. In quick succession, British aircraft then crowded in, dropping heavy bombs accurately on the steel works and pelting the entire area with hundreds of incendiaries. Great banks of smoke rose billowing into the air, and , this, combined with shifting cloud patches, obscured the scene for some of the late comers. One pilot cruised over the target for 40 minutes before bombing his objective. The pilot, generally, however, did not meet with the same trouble, and as they returned to the base, one after another reported great destruction. Flames blazed up in one factory enveloping the whole building, and remained a ragged glare in the sky long after the aircraft had gone away. Two minutes after one aircraft had discharged its load of incendiaries, three violent explosions were observed among the fires caused. Pilots stated that from 30 and 40 miles away, it was plain that many of the fifes had taken firm hold. Neutral observers • confirmed the reports that heavy damage in the Ruhr was done by the recent intensive British bombing. BORDEAUX AND BREST. RUGBY, December 9. A heavy attack on Bordeaux, last night, was carried, out by aircraft of the Coastal Command. The attack, states the Air Ministry news service,

was launched soon after dark. Heavy bombs from the first raiders started a ’great fire among the buildings between the two dock basins. "At Lorient, where, as at Brest, the raid was the second within 24 hours, sticks of bombs were distributed across the docks and store-houses. One bomb blew up-a shower of crimson sparks. A great blue flash was seen after a salvo of bombs hit the drydecks. Brest was lit up, soon after the raid began, by a fire in the dockside buildings. The roof fell in while the attack was still in progress, and the pilots could see the flames reflected on the water. Other bombs struck around the Port Militaire naval barracks, and the dry-docks.

SUBMARINE BASES HARD HIT.

RUGBY, December 9.

Last night’s raid oh Bordeaux was carried out by a strong force of heavy bombers, which flew, right across the plains of western France. As part of the much advertised “new phase of .war,” the Germans are using Bordeaux as a submarine base, from which to attack our merchant shipping in the Atlantic, but the R.A.F. is tackling this as it did the phase of the projected invasion. The flight to Bordeaux . was one with which British pilots are familiar. A great store of oil which the Germans accumulated at Bordeaux had already been fired, and recently a heavy raid was made on the neighbouring aerodrome, from which some of Germany’s largest bombers go out to attack the Atlantic ; trade route. The first of our bombers arrived ovei* Bordeaux at about half-past seven in the evening, states the Air Ministry News Service, and it was more than two and a-half hours beI fore the last turned for home. All the pilots were extremely pleased with the weather and clear sky. Many sought and found No. 1 work dock, | where German submarines are moored. along the dock wall. The aircraft came over one by one in quick succession and made their attacks independently. The pilots’ reports made a long, businesslike catalogue of fires and explosions. Two points stand out —because they lit inside the aircraft flying well over 11,000 feet, and the fire because it could be seen burning very fiercely without smoke, from the bar of the mouth of the Gironde, some 50 miles away. The pilots are certain that many heavy high-explosive bombs fell very close to, if.not on, the submarines in dock, and it is believed that the dock gates were hit, when a large number of bursts were followed by a shattering explosion at the entrance to the docks. i Other heavy, bombs fell among [warehouses, . railway sidings, and 'jetties, with good effect, and the bombers had time and ammunition to spare for an attack on a nearby aeroplane construction works, which were hit and set alight. . Bordeaux was found to be heavily defended by batteries of anti-aircraft guns, mounted in ships and on land. At Lorient —the second submarine base raided—the weather was. not so favourable. Nevertheless, many bursts were seen on the target and a stick of bombs fell across a large dockside building at the north entrance to the channel. U.S.A. PRESS ESTIMATE. |

NEW YORK, December 7. “Someone is eventually . going . to cry for peace, but it won’t be Britain, declares the London correspondent of the “New York Times.” The. correspondent adds that the position to the present can be considered a draw, with both sides handing out similar devastation. “Human endurance, however, _ has its limits,” he writes. “Theoretically it seems possible for the Germans to. destroy British resistance by concentrating on city after city. Nevertheless, the war cannot be won from the S 1 “Anti-Nazi revolts may be expected in France, Poland, and elsewhere, but it must be realised that Britain will be unable to defeat Germany without greater help from the United States.

N.Z. CASUALTIES. WELLINGTON, December 9. The following air casualty was announced to-night:—Sergeant C. H. Bain, Royal New Zealand Air Force, killed in a flying accident. His mother is Mrs Bain, Claudelands, Hamilton. INVERCARGILL, December 9. Official advice was received to-day of the death in an aircraft accident in Britain of Sergeant Pilot J. B. Courtis, a son of Mr A. H, Courtis, Invercargill. Advice contained in the cablegram stated that he was flying an aeroplane which crashed on hills during bad weather. Sergeant Pilot Courtis received his preliminary flying training with the Southland Aero Club, and transferred from the reserve of pilots to the Royal New Zealand Air Force shortly after the outbreak of war. He passed through the Levin and Taieri training schools, and gained his wings at Wigram.