Heavy R.A.F. Raid On Bremen, Invasion Ports

Northern Advocate, 3 January 1941, Page 6

Heavy R.A.F. Raid On Bremen, Invasion Ports

(Received 10.30 a.m.) LONDON, January 2. The Royal Air Force heavily attacked targets in Bremen and the invasion ports last night.

It is understood that the raid on Bremen, was particularly heavy, and it is believed that considerable damage was inflicted on certain definite military objectives. The attack is significant in view of the recent reports that the Fockewulf factory at Bremen was producing a new twin-engined fighter, also the well-known Condor planes, which are used in raids on British shipping. It was Bremen’s first raid for a fortnight, although previously it had been raided 50 times. The threatening note with which the spokesman warned the United States on December 22, is absent from the Wilhelmstrasse’s latest semi-official statement. Sorrow and disappointment instead of anger are now the keynote. Bremen Mam Objective. Describing the Royal Air Force’s concentrated raid on Bremen last night, an Air Ministry communique states that Bremen provided the main objective of last night’s offensive operation. - The attack lasted some 3£ hours.

Shipbuilding and dockyards and the railway station wfere subjected to a concentrated discharge of incendiaries and high explosive bombs. Large fires and explosions were seen.

Ports in enemy-occupied territory, including Flushing, Ostend and Brest were also attacked. No British planes are missing.

Raging- Furnace

An hour or so after the night’s raids on Bremen had begun, and while the long procession of aircraft of the Bomber Command was still moving towards the city, pilots could see a red glow in the sky when they reached the Zuyder Zee. They were still 120 miles from their objective and as they covered this last lap the glow resolved itself into a blaze and the blaze into a raging furnace. Twenty thousand incendiary and a lot of high explosive bombs had done their work on the greatest seaport in Germany after Hamburg.

Alternative Targets.

Smoke rose to the height of the clouds and was mingled with them. Some pilots found that the particular objective which they had been detailed to attack was so thoroughly ablaze that rather than waste* bombs on buildings already gutted they sought other factories. The raid began an hour after nightfall.

Although . overwhelming in effect it was over before midnight.

Cloud and weather conditions on the way out were bad, but over Bremen the clouds were driven so quickly by the wind that no target was hidden for long and for all practical purposes it was a clear night.

Intensely Cold.

It was intensely cold and there was a young moon to light up the city. The chief objectives were the great shipbuilding yards in which warships of all kinds, especially submarines, are under construction, the Deutsche vacuum oil refineries, railway communications, the Genbruder Nielson rice and starch mills, and the Fockenwulf air frame factory. It was the rice and starch mills which some pilots found burning so fiercely. Great Conflagrations The fire was so strong that they judged it unnecessary to ravage what was already a ruin. Pilots who attacked these mills reported that eight large fires broke out and eventually cam.e together in one great conflagration which could still be seen when the crews crossed’ the Dutch frontier on their way home. At several shipbuilding yards both docks and buildings were repeatedly hit by high explosives and when thousands of incendiaries fell on two of these yards nothing could be seen blit a sheet of fire, so brilliant and of