EARLIER ATTACKS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 234, 31 August 1940, Page 7

EARLIER ATTACKS.

PILOT’S DESCRIPTION. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Aug. 29. Reporting on the R.A.F.' raid on Dessau (Central Germany), on Wednesday night, one of the pilots said: “My observer dropped our first stick of high-explosive and incendiary bombs, which burst plumb in the middle of the target. Fires broke out at once, and about 30 seconds after our bombs had burst a building in the north-east of the group blew up with a blinding white flash and a thick pall of heavy white smoke. The smoke covered all the target and seemed to spread thousands of feed in the wind, and. it looked as though’"the bpilding itself had gone up in smoke. “We came round again and dropped our second stick of high-explosives, which again burst on the target. The fire at this time was raging . fiercely, and we could see it for 60 miles on our return journey.” Tldrty-five miles south of Dessau the Mockau-Erla aeroplane factory at Leipzig was being attacked at the same time, and fires were observed among the hangars after several highexplosive bombs and 60 incendiaries had been unloaded. At Reisholz another section of the bomber force attacked a mineral oil and electric power-station. Three fires were seen to break out shortly after the target had been hit, and in a later attack further large explosions were caused after direct hits had been registered. Bombs were also dropped on the Keopchenwerke power station at Herdieke, near Dortmund. While these attacks were in progress other forces of heavy and medium bombers were harassing the German airfields and enemy-occupied aerodromes in Holland, Belgium and France.

The aerodrome at Magdeburg was hit by high-explosive and incendiary bombs, and severe damage was caused at Schipol (Amsterdam), where the bomb-bursts were followed by largo fires with great columns of smoke and then by three heavy explosions. An attack on the air base at Haamstede resulted in a fire which could bo seon from 30 miles away.