COLOGNE BLITZ

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21550, 1 November 1944, Page 3

COLOGNE BLITZ

4000-TON RAID VITAL GERMAN BASE NOT ONE BOMBER LOST (11.30 a.m.) LONDON. Oct. 31. Four thousand .tons of high explosives and Incendiaries were dropped by R.A.F. bombers on Cologne last night, states an Air Ministry communique. Not a single bomber was lost in the attack. Two planes are missing from the whole night's operations. Well over 850 Lancasters and Halifaxes attacked Cologne last night, the second major attack in 56 hours, says the Air Ministry. In addition, Mosquitoes bombed the city on the nights ot Saturday and Sunday'. Cologne was already the most devastated Rhineland city, but it is essential that the destruction should go on on an even larger scale if it is not to be used by the enemy as an advanced base.

The Air Ministry adds that, though there was a bright moon last night, there was cloud all along the route and over Cologne, but the pathfinder forces were prepared for this and tire whole target area was marked out. Well over 100 tons of high explosives and incendiaries then began to go down every minute. Berlin was also bombed. Panic-stricken Civilians

Panic-stricken German. civilians are besieging trains'in an attempt to escape from the Royal Air Force raids on tne Rhineland.

The Exchange and Telegraph Agency’s correspondent in Zuricu says thousands, oi homeless civilians are swarming into the Lake Constance district, chiefly from Cologne. People are arriving at already overcrowded villages clad in rags, and oiten without shoes or belongings.

me correspondent says it is reliably learned that Cologne and 61 villages in the district are uninhabitable. Police and S.S. men had to intervene in Dusseldorf and Coblenz when thousands oi panic-stricken people besieged the trains endeavouring to escape from the raids, which have so dislocated the railways that Lilly troops and bombed-out persons are allowed to traveL