COLOGNE BLITZ

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 15 June 1942, Page 5

COLOGNE BLITZ

PHOTOGRAPHS REVEAL DAMAGE Rugby, June 13. A detailed interpretation of the Cologne photographs shows that the damage caused by the 1000-bombers’ raid was immeasurably greater than anything yet done to any other German city. Not only are large areas in the centre of the city devastated, involving destruction of public and administrative buildings and business premises, but industrial and residential property in suburban areas has been seriously affected by fire and the high explosives. Apart from devastation extending over approximately 300 acres n the centre of the city, areas of nartieularly severe damage can be seen in the western suburbs and the industrial districts on the east bank.

It is estimated that more than 250 iactory buildings and workshops have been either destroyed or seriously damaged. A striking feature of the raid was the amount of damage done to railway communications. There is no photographic evidence of damage to the cathedral, though damage to adjoining building, suggests that some minor damage may have occurred. —8.0. W. ESTIMATED DEATH-ROLL BETWEEN 11,000 AND 15,000 (Rec 12.45 p.m.) London, June 14. Herr Abetz last week told his immediate Vichy collaborators that the Cologne devastation was so great after the R.A.F. raid that the evacuations already exceed 250,000 of a total population of 760,000 “The Times” correspondent on the French frontier reporting this says this is believed to explain why the German Labour Front last week ordered a census of dwelling accommodation througli the Reich with authority to torce families to take in the homeless. It is officially stated that evacuations from Lubeck were 30,000, and from Rostock 80,000. Herr Abetz said it was impossible to accurately estimate cologne’s death-roll because an unknown number was still under the ruins. The German Government believed the deaths totalled between 11,000 and 15,000. with twice that number injured In addition to houses gutted many are unsafe and must be destroyed Herr Abetz said the population was turbulent at the inadequate protection against the raids. The powerful R.A.F bombs pulverised even reinforced concrete shelters thirty feet below the surface. Hundreds were suffocated and hundreds killed through the pulping of their lungs by the stupendous air pressure. Others with overstrung nerves from long privations of the war became insane and their violence wag demoral, ising to witness.—P.A.