ROBOT RAIDS CONTINUE

Grey River Argus, 21 June 1944, Page 5

ROBOT RAIDS CONTINUE

PLANES FALL IN ENGLAND

More Deaths and Damage

[Aus. & N.Z- Press Assn.l (Rec. 11.54) LONDON, June 20 Pilotless bombers again raided southern England this morning. Several early morning workers were kilL ed and others were injured when ro bots crashed on a road. Five members of the Home Guard were killed last night when a pilotless bomber crashed on a school used as a Home Guard post. Ten others were in A r robot plane caught by a night fighter hit a house, completely demolishing it and wrecking a numbei of houses. Only three people were slightly injured. REDUCED activity. (Rec. 1.10.) ’ "LONDON, June 20. The “Evening News” says that fewer pilotless ’planes w.ere sent across the Channel to southern England between dusk last night and dawn today than on anv night since the Germans started using the new weapon. Reports of daylight activity yesterday also show that pilotless ’planes were in action on a somewhat smaller scale than on Sunday. The paper adds that while counter-measures with fighters and anti-aircraft guns are proving fairly effective it is far too early yet to assume that these are the pauses of the reduced enemy activity. "* ELEVEN PEOPLE KILLED. (Rec. 1.10 a.m.) LONDON, June 20. Eleven people, including a' doctor and his wife, were killed when a pilotless bomber demolished a number of houses in Southern England early to-day. Eleven others are missing. Rescuers are using shovels and bare hands to remove the debris under which the missing are believed to be trapped. - ... ■ I SEVERAL SHOT DOWN. (Rec. 8.5.) LONDON, June 19. Fighter ’planes shot down several pilotless ’planes over southern England to-night. “VARIETY NIGHT” IN SOUTH ENGLAND. (Rec. 11.0.) LONDON, June 20. Enemy activity was reported last night over southern England and parts of eastern Scotland. Damage and casualties resulted in southern England, where residents had a “variety night.” First there were visits from pilotless bombers, some of which were destroyed, then sharp and heavy gunfire in the Straits of Dover area, suggesting a naval engagement in the Channel, near the French coast, and finally cross-Channel shelling. ■ The “variety show” lasted from midnight until after dawn, when Allied ’planes began going out across the Channel to continue the great air offensive. LAUNCHING POINTS BOMBED. LONDON, June 19. Fortresses and Liberators were over France, to-day, twice attacking launching platforms for the Germans’ pilotless planes in the Pas de Calais area. Medium forces, with escorting fighters, carried out a morning attack and bombed through the clouds by instruments. A second force of heavy bombers attacked late in the afternoon, some aiming bombs visually and others bombing b v instruments. Heavy bohnbers attacking the aerodromes in the Bordeaux area bombed wsualty a'nd encountered no fighters, but moderate to intense flak. Rocket installations in the Pas de Calais and the northern 'coast of France have been ere of the primary objectives of the Marauders and Flavocs since last November. They have carried out more than 7000 individual attacks against them and dropped nearly 11,050 tons of high explosives. WEAK SPOT FOUND? LONDON, June 19. An “Evening Standard” correspondent at a Bofors anti-aircraft gun site, says that R.A.F. fighters and anti-aircraft gunners after four days’ ceaseless effort evolved a new technique to beat the pilotless bomber. He states: “From a lonely Bofors gun site last night, I saw this new battle being- fought and won.. I saw gunners and fighters destroying pilotless bombers. Details of this new combined battle technique must for the moment remain secret. The R.A.F. seems to have found the pilotless bomber’s weak spot. “Two new facts emerge from this new stage of the battle. Firstly, it now seems certain that the Geri mans have established pilotless bomb- { 1 ers and runways nearly as far south as Dieppe. This conclusion is reached by estimating their fixed course across the Channel and southern England. Secondly, the pilotless bombers seem to develop extremely high speedy (dstimated, by ftflti-,air-craft gunners at well over 300 miles an hour. It seems certain Itheir speed is a good deal faster than earlier estimated. “Fighters from dawn to-dav were circling the sky of southern England, attacking pilotless planes which continued to come over throughout the day.” German Claims HEAVY HARASSING FIRE ON LONDON. LONDON, June 19. A special German communique states: “Heavy harassing aga nst the London area continued without a pause yesterday and last A German radio commentator sa a that London is being singled out tot destruction b v the new weapon because it is the technical heait the invasion preparations. Continuing fictitious accounts of the damage and panic caused by the pilotless planes, the German News Agency quotes the pilots of a reconnaissance plane which flew over London, as sa - ing the whole city was ablaze. Hires were burning everywhere and shooting up like mushrooms. ‘Never before has the world seen such a sight. Long after we crossed. Northern France on the homeward journey, th? fires of London could be seen. Some J original fires were still burning after eighty hours.” , , , The Berlin radio declareo: ‘Whatever success the enemv .may achieve i'n combating the new devastating missile, he may rest assured that other and even more terrible secret weapons are ready for use. The apnea rance of the new secret weapon against England filled the German pfonle with delight. Widespread scepticism about the. unfulfilled promises and continual reproaches, moans, and cheap sneers are at last finished with.” , The Paris radio stated that the points from which robots were I launched had been named after bombed German cities including Dusseldorf, Hamburg and Kassel. The “Daily Mali’s” Stockholm/ cor-

respondent says: The German flyingbomb propaganda is already running into seriuos trouble. Delirious optimism is sweeping Germany. Swedish correspondents at Berlin report that the leaders see the peril of this jubilation, but the propaganda machine appears out of control. As soon as one speaker is rushed to the microphone to warn the people that this weapon itself will not win the war, another comes on with stories that the roads from London are black with refugees, London anti-aircraft guns are without ammunition, and the Allies in Normandy a're cut off from their home bases. 1 The Faris radio commentator, Jean Paquis, to-day dismissed the Normandy, Italian and Russian fronts as secondary. “All attention is now turned on London ” Details of Plane COUNTER-MEASURES TAKEN RUGBY, June 20. Full details were published to-night of the pilotless aircraft with which the Germans have been attacking southern England and of the countermeasures Britain has long been taking. > ' i The pilotless plane is jet-propelled I and is launched from a ramp, probably with the aid of a take-off rocket. The fuselage is 21 feet 10 inches long, with a maximum width of two feet eight and a quarter inches while the over-all length of the ! missile is 26 feet four .and a-half inches, and the wing span 16 feet. The range of the type at present in use is about 150 miles, the speed in level flight between 300 and 350 miles per hour an ( i the explosive power equivalent to a 1000 kilogramme (22001 b German bomb. The explosive is carried in a war-head mounted in a thin casing in the front part of the fuselage. The engine is driven by petrol and the noise heard in flight is due to intermittent explosions within the jet propulsion unit. Constructed almost entirely of steel, the projectile is coloured with the usual type of German camouflage, dark green on top and light blue underneath. It is not radio-controlled but is operated by an automatic pilot set before the take-off. Once the missile has been launched, therefore, the enemy has no control over its further movements. Pilotless plane attacks were planned to take place many months ago in order to divert the impact of the Allied Air Forces on German industry and communications, and raise the morale of the German people. Measures were promptly taken to counter this threat. The German experimental station at Peenemunde, for example, was attacked by R.A.F. Bomber Command last August and serious damage and many casualties were inflicted. This caused a severe setback to the highly-important activities being undertaken there. Moreover, the factories and plants manufacturing special weapons, notably the works at Friedrichshafen, were powerfully attacked and damaged. Heavy assaults were also made by Bomber Command and United States aircraft on the enemy’s war production centres where various kinds of weapons and component parts were being manufactured. The construction in France of discharge points of pilotless .aircraft were detected and subsequently watches and attacks on these installations were begun last December, and continued as weather, and other operational requirements permitted. Since the end of the year tens of thousands of tons of bombs have been dropped on launching points and photographs show that the most extensive damage was caused to them, despite the fact that the sites were small and scattered .and offered difficult bombing targets. A great number of camouflaged sites ana ‘supply depots of pilotless aircraft have been destroyed and damaged and the enemy’s repair work on them has been ' disrunted by renewed attacks tr i” meantime. tenter ah-eratt and pnti-aircraft defences have been makino- many successful attacks on the projectiles in flight in the p few days and large numbers of them have been shot down into the sea, m nnZn country Other offensive measures to frustrate the enemy’s plans are also being adopted.