A PILOT’S EXPERIENCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24413, 26 September 1940, Page 7

A PILOT’S EXPERIENCE

GASWORKS AS TARGET DIRECT HITS SCORED GREAT PILLAR OF FIRE (British Official Wireless) (United Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph Copyright) RUGBY, Sept. 24. (Received Sept. 25, at 7 p.m.) Broadcasting on Tuesday night a 21-year-old bomber pilot of the R.A.F. described his experiences in last night's raids in and around Berlin. He blew up part of the gasworks in a north-east district of the city. He said; “ This is my twenty-fifth raid over Germany and it was about the most successful of the whole 25. Our squadron had been in Berlin before, but I hadn’t. They had sent me to Hamm instead, and my crew were a bit fed un about that. We were told about 5 o’clock yesterday that the Berlin show was on and we knew it was going to be on a pretty large scale. Our particular target was the largest gasworks to the north-east of Berlin, about four or five miles from the centre of the city. There is a railway running right alongside it. with a large, open space to the east and a lake about a mile north-west of it. Those were our three landmarks. Ideal Conditions “As we neared Berlin cloud beneath us closed up and over the city itself was quite clear, in fact the conditions were nretty well ideal for night bombing. The trip out was entirely without incident, and we were absolutely on the course because through gaps in the cloud we were able to pin point ourselves on a number of places along the route. There was some gunfire round towns to the south of the course, but nobody bothered us. The first sign of any real activity came as we approached Berlin. We got within 20 miles of it and suddenly five flares appeared in the sky. They were being dropped by other bombers that got there before us. No sooner had that happened than up went a barrage. As we got nearer the number of flares increased. I counted 10, but as we were coming away after the bombing there was well' over 20. A Chain of Fires “We could iudge roughly the shape of the city from the gunfire around the outskirts even before we got over Berlin. The flares made it light enough to pick out important features. We could see some of the others bombing and to the northeast there was a small chain of fires burning. I said to my navigator, ‘We will make for those and see what can be seen there.’ As we approached we could see these fires were just a little south of our actual target, which was a large gasworks on that side of Berlin. That was a bit of luck for us as it meant we were able to make our tr z rks in the actual run up on the target. One usually has to make „ dummy run first, but on this occasion we were able to bomb the first time, with only a few minor corrections. Violent Explosions “At first we thought we missed because we saw only normal bombing bursts. About 10 seconds later there were violent explosions in the centre of the stick. I think the wireless operator noticed it first. He was looking out through the Astro hatch, and he called out, ‘ It’s a beauty; it’s blown everything up.’ He said later he saw a flash, and then a great pillar of fire seemed to come up in the air. All this time we had been getting a certain amount of fire from heavy guns on the ground, but nothing to worry us much, although away through the cloud we saw another of cur bombers caught in searchlights and come under very heavy fire. As we left we could see other people bombing our fires, an there were practically continuous salvoes of bombs falling on various parts of the city. It was the biggest show T have ever seen.” The bomb-aimer said he counted at least 20 fires burning. “You could still see them 35 miles away, after which we ran into cloud again, and the view was obscured. We were second back at the base on our return, but all the others returned within an hour or so, and everyone reported that he had dropped his bombs.”