FLOODS IN RUHR

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 May 1943, Page 5

FLOODS IN RUHR

GERMAN ADMISSIONS

LONDON, May 19. Reports reaching London this morning indicate that at least 54 towns and villages have been flooded as a result of the bombing of the Mohne and Eder dams. The German Army has rushed a detachment of 9000 sappers to the flooded areas to help in the rescue work. Thousands of people are camping on the high ground along the Rivers Ruhr and Weser. Hail and rain storms and freezing temperatures are adding to their discomfort. Cassel is practically an island, and other towns, including Dortmund, are knee-deep in water. Aeroplanes and equipment on Duisburg’s low-lying aerodrome are being evacuated, and shipping from Duisburg’s great inland docks is being taken upstream to the salety of the Rhine. In Neheim houses are awash to the second storey. Practically all the live stock in the region was washed away. . In spite of an iron censorship, Swedish correspondents in Berlin say that the authorities there admit thousands of victims and great damaS Photographs show uncontrolled torrents from the Mohne sweeping all before them. One shows the former busy centre of ForedenbergBoesperde, 13 miles from the Mohne dam. Here the floods have submergeci roads, isolated an electricity works, destroyed road and rail bridges, wrecked a railway plant, and submerged tracks and sidings. According to London sources, official German figures indicated that unusually high water levels were recorded to-day in the Rhine at Duisburg, where the River Rhone enters the "Rhine, and in the Weser below Cassel. The Berlin radio reported that the Weser below Cassel has risen about eight feet. The Rhine at a town north of Duisburg had swollen by about 66 inches, and even at Emmerich, on the Rhine near the Dutch frontier, the rise was nearly two feet. ' The German newspaper, Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung” says that the Royal Ail’ Force has converted the districts between the Rhine and the Ruhr into a theatre of war by continuous battering. There is absolute silence and total destruction in whole areas. According to the Morocco radio complete inundation threatens Dort-; mund. The number of dead and homeless is growing hourly.

COAL AND POWER SUPPLIES

LONDON, May 18. “While the floods are spreading in the upper valley of the Ruhr and the Wesef. the greatest loss may be suffered in the industrial areas lower down,” says the diplomatic correspondent of “The Times. ’ “The factories there are constantly. bombed from the air, and now. with their water supply threatened, they are like an armoured division cut off from most of its petrol while under heavy bombardment. The floods directly affected the hydro-electric power plants. Some have been destroyed outright. But the area depended on hydro-electric power only in a small degree. Coal was the great producer of electricity. Now, at every stage from the mine to the power station, there is the threat ol dislocation through lack of water. Moreover, transport suffers directly, for just when the Germans are wanting'to be assured of supplies for the Russian fighting, and when fresh dangers in the Mediterranean call Lor fresh supplies there, great damage has been done to that part of Germany where war factories are centrA ed and communications are tlngk. The “Daily Telegraph” says: The situation in the Ruhr and Weser Valleys is so critical that the Germans have imposed a most rigid censorshio on any details of the disastei. However, there was a slip-up when German stations to-day broadcast their daily inland waterways reports, showing a phenomenal rise in the waters of the Weser and Ruhr.’ The “Daily Telegraph” says that most of the coal sent from Germany to Italy under the agreement to supply 1 000.000 tons a month has come from' Upper Silesia, but the Rumdisaster will throw a greater burden on the Upper Silesian coalfields in supplying Germany herself. Jhus Italy’s coal supply is imperilled.

EFFECT ON PRODUCTION

RUGBY, May ,18. Bv far the most important oi the targets hit was the Mohne Dam which has already emptied many millions m tons of waler down the valley ol the Ruhr. The damage and dislocation it would cause was part of the whole damage and dislocation the R-.Aff. has been inflicting on the industrial heart of Germany in ever-increasing weight, particularly in the last two months. , „ , . , The bridges over the Ruhr between ■the dam itself and Duisburg would probably be faced with something like ten times a maximum flood flow in the Ruhr. The Ruhr, like many rivers running down through hilly country, rose and fell in a wet and dry season. On an average, before the Mohne Dam was built, the flow in a wet season would be three times as creat as in the Summer months. Storage dams, of which the Mohne was by far the biggest were made to regulate the river by holding up the Winter rainfall and letting it out during the dry season. While Germany was re-arming and stepping up industrial production the industries of the Ruhr became the mainstay of the war machine. The Germans felt some concern as to whether the water supply would not be over-taxed. Now the reserves ol Winter rainfall have gone roaring down the valley to the Rhone. Local authorities have certainly been set a problem. They would find it hard, the commentator concluded, to form an estimate, to-day, of what supplies they could rely on getting through the Summer to meet the demands that simply must be met.

ESTIMATE OF CASUALTIES

(Recd. 1.40 p.m.) LONDON, May 19

The Berlin radio, quoting military ■circles, announced that casualties from the air attack on the clams so fa” totalled 711 dead, including 341 prisoners of war of various nationalities, and 36 missing. A great number of casualties were expected originally, but it was later established that a number of persons fled to the mountains before the flood on a signal given in good time by the dam guards.

JEWS ’BLAMED

LONDON, May 19

The “Daily Telegraph” notes that German news bulletins contained no reference to the disaster for nearly 30 hours after the issue of the communique admitting the breaching of the dams. Then, as was to be expected; they blamed the Jews. The Berlin radio, referring to the statement by a former Reutei’ correspondent, Guy Bettany, that he had suggested the operation to the Air Min-

LARGE AREA INUNDATFP

SAPPERS’ RESCUE EFFORTS

LONDON DENIAL

PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE

RUGBY, May 19

N.Z. OFFICER'S DESCRIPTION

(N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent)

CARDIFF CASUALTIES

istry, said: “Telling light has been thrown on this criminal terror attempt. Bettany leaves no doubt that the attempt on the dams is a crime incited by Jews. The debit account of the Jews in this war is growing bigger and bigger.” . The Stockholm correspondent of the “Daily Express” reports that Goering to-day held a conference of air chiefs about means of defeating what the German newspapers call the new tactics of the Royal Air ; Force.

i (Recd. 1.40 p.m.) LONDON, May jJ. i The report that the idea of blasc.- : ing the dams came from a German Jewish refugee has flung the German i authorities into a state of extreme l.anger. The full flood of German proI paganda has been directed against the I Jews. German broadcasts are full or j renewed threats against the Jews /throughout Europe. . . ; Quoting the Stockholm opinion that I the revelation of mining of the dams ■'was inspired by Jews, was a mistake i of the first magnitude, the Berlin ra--1 dio added: As a result of this, hatred jof Jews has greatly increased throughout Germany, and they would I be made to pay for this latest crime. Official circles in London however, describe the suggestion that a German Jewish refugee inspired the raid as nonsense. “The Times’s” Stockholm correspondent says according to the Tidningen’s Berlin correspondent, Jews in Germanv and occupied territory called the curse of heaven against the person thoughtlessly revealing a Jew as the instigator of the dam raid. 'The Associated Press says that while a German broadcaster was attempting, to-day, to minimise the destruction caused by the mining of the dams, the ghost voice interrupted and shouted: “That doesn’t hide from the world the havoc caused by the floods the British and American bombers created in the heart of the Ruhr. ’

Reconnaissance aircraft were again out over the Ruhr to-day, to photograph the river swollen by the water released through the breaching of the Mohne Dam. Photographs showed that the flooding extended to a point some 60 miles from the reservoir beyond Schwerte, the last point where flooding has occurred. A railway embankment has been badly damaged. The swollen river has taken away one of the. supports of the Hardecke railway viaduct, and the railway lines are suspended precariously over the gap. The viaduct was on the direct route from Dortmund to Hagan and Deutchlorf. The floods swept over the great Bahlhausen marshalling yards, the ninth largest in tne Ruhr. This is about 20 miles from Schwerte. Nearly all the filter beds along the banks of this stretch have been flooded.

(Recd. 1.25 P-.£ ondot . M;|y 19 In the third Lancaster which bombed Mohne Dam, was Flying Officer Len Chambers of Karamea. He is a wireless operator, and stood in ihCj astrodrome from where he saw all tfft- i bombing. His Lancaster, in wmc-i were five Australians and one Englishman, flew round the target for a-ij hour, and observed the effects of ciie | flood' as it .swept down tne yailey. l was Chambers’ first raid m his second tour of operations, the first tour being with Seventy-five (New Zealand) Squadron. Chambers said: "We had been training for this trip lor sla. weeks. It was a beautifully clear night when we took off. It was so deal that as we flew low over the Norte Sea. we were able to keep perfect foi - mation, which was maintained u»n.over Hamo, where flak caused us to lake evasive action. We were so near the target that we did not botner to reform. I went towards die tu.odrome and saw Wing Commander G. p. Gibson go in first to bomo. 1 saw a terrific splash then an explosion. There was no apparent breaenyn uic dam after wo had bombed, but al mi the fourth bomber dropped the eggs, the dam broke. I watched nie warn; pouring out. It looked ralaer snaliow at the time, but muse have been oi terrific force as the power house just melted away. There were six guns firing at us but not very effectively, and it seemed the gunners racked practice. All the same, our sidiy board wing and starboard petrol mnk were hit, just as we bomoecl, buu Wiuout serious effect. After the bombiiw we fl°w around with Gibson io draw" guns first. Our airgunners replied, and when we left only one gun was still firing. Once we flew wnnm half a mile of the guns. Toe?/ pa.ci us some attention until tne next bonder went in to bomb, wnen me;/ arvex ied the lire to it. After a while w<flcw down the valley. We could the water gradually rising. D loof slow to us but must have been ILwiiß swiftly, because I saw a bridge wipe, awav. There was also a village wasbeing gradually surrounded. vv<; had plenty of time and plenty ol petrol, so we stayed around until wc got all'the information we could, and then set a course for home. “Everything was quiet unul we were over the Zuycler Zee, , wmm me searchlights focussed us in a cone. Flak was very unfriendly, . aunners gave them a taste in i etU'.n. It looked good to sec our boys firing back. We had more flak just asyve wen- passing out to sea, and tee scathing I saw was a blue scarchligm trving 1o pick us up, but it closed gciv-i ivlion the gunners gave it a burst, u was a great trip, and we found Air Marshal Harris and An’ Vice-Ma>sm.l R. A. Cochrane waiting lor us when lwe got back. Everyone was in teai - inc spirits.” , has now seven clays leave which he will spend in London?’Chambers cannot praise Gibson ioo highly, adding: “He is a groat cnap. i I wish' you could meet him. . i It is understood that Fhgnt Lieuteni ant J. L. Munroe of Gisborne had bad i luck, and d s d n'' J ' reach the target, I but returned safely.

LONDON, May 18. ( Waves of enemy raiders last nigh., sharply attacked a Welsh Coast town which, according to a German communique, was Cardiff. Although the number ol German raiders over Britain has shown a considerable decrease, the Welsh town attacked last night suffered its heaviest raid since 1941- Houses, offices, and shops were destroyed, and there were many casualties. In addition. a large school was hit. When a bomb scored a direct hit on a shelter, three W.A.A.F.’s were killed and four were wounded.