INDUSTRIAL TARGETS IN GERMANY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 9 December 1940, Page 5

INDUSTRIAL TARGETS IN GERMANY

DESTRUCTIVE RAID ON DUSSELDORF HUGE FIRE STARTED [British Official Wireless] RUGBY, Bth December. An Air Ministry communique states: “R.A.F. bombers last night carried out effective sustained attacks on many important industrial military targets in the Dusseldorf area. Damage is believed to have been severe. Other targets included Antwerp, Dunkirk, Calais and Boulogne, while several enemy aerodromes in Holland, Belgium and France were bombed. Coastal Command aircraft attacked naval shipyards and docks at Lorient and Brest. Hits were scored causing fires and explosions were seen in the target area. Four of our planes are missing.” A fire which one bomber crew, well experienced in raids over Germany, describe as the largest they have ever seen, was left blazing at Dusseldorf after heavy R.A.F. raids last night. Full details are not yet available, but it is clear, states the Air Ministry news service, that the attacks on blast furnaces, steel works, gas works and railway yards constitute a raid as heavy and certainly as destructive as last Wednesday’s on an armaments factory and otl.*»r vital targets in the same city. There was good visibility and pilots had no difficulty in recognising the targets and observing the results. Railways, factory buildings and waterways showea brilliantly beneath the moon. The roofs caved in, and the explosions tore the walls of great steel works right open. NAVAL BASES PLASTERED Details by the Air Ministry News Service of the attacks on Brest and Lorient revealed that the first aircraft went in over Brest just as daylight faded and a bright moon assisted those who followed. At the outset fires were started around the naval school, and soon the whole area was quartered by two oblongs of flame. Thirty seconds after the first of large-calibre bombs aimed at a power station there was a vast explosion. An observer described the explosion as being like a huge blacksmith’s forge from which rose showers of debris from shattered buildings. There were more fires when incendiary bombs fell on infantry barracks and on buildings between them and several naval barracks. High-explo-sive bombs were also dropped on the burning area. A dry dock was among other targets bombed in the attacks from which one aircraft did not return. They carried out through an intense barrage of anti-aircraft fire. During the raid on Lorient 15 fires were counted in one part of the naval station, also around a dry dock. Other objectives were shipbuilding yards and ordnance works.