GREAT FOREST FIRES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 239, 6 September 1940, Page 7

GREAT FOREST FIRES.

SECRET OBJECTIVES HIT,

(British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Sept. 4

Included among the objectives of Tuesday night’s R.A.F. raids over Germany were armament factories and munition stores hidden among the dense forest of the hi art/, Mountains in North-West Germany, these being attacked for the first time. Hundreds of incendiary bombs were dropped and great tracts of the surrounding pinewoods set on fire. As these fires spread the vivid flashes of explosions betrayed the presence of the secret military objectives which the pilots had gone out to attack. One pilot commented on the corroboration which was forthcoming of the military character of the objectives he was. instructed to attack. He observed on liis return: “There was something important there because anti-aircraft fire started coming up at us, and you wouldn’t normally expect a lot of guns cracking off at you from the middle of a forest.” This was the second night in succession that R.A.F., bomber crews attacked military objectives concealed in forests. On the previous night the raid covered a large area of the famous Black Forest to the east of Baden, and also the Forest of Thuringen. Numerous fires were then started, many of which were seen to gain a good hold. In at least one case an ammunition dump was believed to have been hit. Two of the force of bombers Sent out last night were detailed to make a reconnaissance of the Black Forest area which had been attacked on Monday night and the crew of one of these aircraft reported that they were able to make out the still-smouldering embers of a fire which had devastated an area of forestland estimated at a mile long and a mile and a-half wide.