KEY POINTS BOMBED

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 166, 13 June 1940, Page 7

KEY POINTS BOMBED

GERMANS SUFFER DEARLY. ALLIED AIR STRAFE. (United'Press Association —By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received June 13, 10.40 a.m. LONDON, June 12. An Air Ministry communique states: “During yesterday medium bombers of the R.A.F. made repeated attacks on enemy motor and transport columns, armoured fighting vehicles and troops concentrating in loops of the Seine east of Rouen-, and the adjacent wooded areas. The enemy’s movements were harassed both by bombing and low-flying machinegun attacks. “In the course of these operations two enemy fighters were shot down. Four of our aircraft are missing. Night operations included the bombing of key jjoilits, such as railway junctions and ammunition dumps, in the. rear of the fighting zones from the sea to the Meuse. Enemy concentrations in the neighbourhood of the Seine were again bombed. Crossings of the Somme suffered further damage and woods were set on fire in the Hirson-Givet area. “Other aircraft attacked military objectives in Cologne and elsewhere in Western Germany. One of our heavy bombers is missing from the operations in Northern Italy. Our fighters were active over France yesterday. At least eight enemy aircraft were destroyed. One of our fighters is missing.” “Our Air Force was fully active on the main front, and it attacked armoured units in the Seine Valley, and the Argonne, destroyed numerous tanks and dispersed columns,” states a French High Command report, ‘fin spite of uiifavou rable weather our ’planes attacked military objectives. We were successful in numerous aerial combats.”

HUNDRED BOMBS A MINUTE. High explosive \ and incendiary bombs were dropped ,at the rate of over a hundred a minute during one ten-minute action yesterday by the R.A.F. medium bombers in one series of attacks directed against enemy/ concentrations advancing in the Lower Seine south-east of Rouen. Attacking in sections *at heights varying from 6000 ft to 800 ft, the R.A.F. released salvos of bombs on their targets, wrecking convoys, scattering mechanised columns, blocking road junctions and. setting woods ablaze. Hits were scored on a column of lorries near Les, and at Lys 20 armoured fighting vehicles on a road one mile south-east of the town received a full salvo of high-explosive bombs; Ten large tanks standing by a roadside at Suzay were enveloped in smoke and flying debris when heavy calibre bombs exploded on the road. Other targets successfully attacked during this ten minutes’ intensive assault included an anti-aircraft battery neai Le s and Lys, and a mechanised column at Racheville. At the height of this raid the starboard air-screw of one bomber was 6hot off and the engine disabled, but after dropping their bombs on the targets the crew returned safely on one undamaged engine.