GREAT RAID ON BERLIN

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 89, 14 March 1941, Page 5

GREAT RAID ON BERLIN

IMMENSE FIRES IN GERMAN CAPITAL BREMEN AND HAMBURG BOMBED (United Press Association. —Copyright.—Rec. 12.5 p.m.) (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, March 13. Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg were heavily attacked last night by the R.A.F. in bright moonlight. ' Many fires were started in Berlin. It was the capitals 37th raid, and the 67th on Hamburg.

The industrial area of Bremen was set alight. The target at Hamburg, situated in the dock area, was repeatedly hit by heavy bombs. During these attacks one of our aircraft extinguished searchlights by machine-gun fire and shot up military barracks from a height of 50ft. One Messerschmitt 110 which attempted to interfere with these operations was shot down.

Further accounts of. the heavy attack on Berlin show that the R.A.F. met and overcame all the defences the Nazis were able to put up, and reached their objective through a continuous curtain of fire.

The first bombers reached Berlin •bout 11.30 and the attacks lasted several hours. The crews were able to pick out streets, railways, and lakes around the city almost as if they were flying in daytime. They could easily see for 50 miles.

Uespite the barrage, several aircraft. spent a long time over the city. One 'pilot whose aircraft was caught in a cone of searchlights for half an hour said it was the longest half-hour he had ever known. He had been hovering around the outskirts of Berlin and pin-pointed his position, and then started to flv across the city. The anti-aircraft fire grew fiercer and bursts were all round. Clouds of smoke seemed to fill the air and the light of the searchlights passed the. shadow of the aircraft against the clouds of smoke so that at times it seemed as if there were three or, four other aircraft flying in formation around it. Fragments of shells hit the •wings and undercarriage, but nothing prevented the pilot and the bombaimer from completing their task.

They saw their bombs burst on the target in the centre of Many pilots reported immense fires in various parts of the city, and the glow in the sky could be seen for 100 miles on the way home.

One pilot attacked a railway junction and 6aw incendiary bombs hit a) track, hind 60on afterwards there was a tremendous explosion followed by small explosions tor fifteen minutes. Another pilot swooped down through the barrage, machine-gunning his objective from just above the rooftops, and then he flew on to attack the barracks outside the city from the same low level.

SHIP TORPEDOED. The new and more powerful type bombers were again in action fast night, taking part in widespread raids carried out by the R.A.F., extending from Berlin to Boulogne. The Air Ministry News Service, giving . this information and stressing the number of fires and explosions resulting from these raids carried out by the light of the moon, also gives details of the* torpedoing of a Herman destroyer in the Skagerrak (between Jutland and Southern Norway) by a Coastal Command Beaufort.

Flying low to make a broadside attack, the British bomber was met by heavy fire, but launched her torpedo and turned 6afely away. The explosion came a few minutes later and is described by the watching rear-gunner as “a great white flash —the biggest 1 have ever seen.”

He'added that it was too dark to see whether the ship was still there, hut there was no more gunfire from her. Other Coastal Command aircraft attacked an aerodrome in Southern Nor-way-and shipping and docks at Ostend, Ijmuiden, and Boulogne.