THE HAMBURG RAID

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24817, 17 January 1942, Page 7

THE HAMBURG RAID

A SUCCESSFUL ATTACK DOCKS AND SHIPYARDS HIT LARGE FIRES STARTED RUGBY; Jan. 15. An Air Ministry communique states that aircraft of the Bomber Command were over North-west Germany m force last night. Hamburg, Emden and other German ports were bombed At Hamburg, which was the main objective, very large fires were left burning in the docks and shipyards. Attacks were also made on the docks at Rotterdam and on enemy aerodromes in Holland. Five of our aircraft are missing from these operations.

Last night's heavy and successful attack on Hamburg is a reminder that this town is by no means only a commercial port. Its docks and shipyards supply and repair the German Navy, and the Air Ministry has just learned that in an attack towards the end of October two floating docks were damaged, together with a destroyer and a submarine which were in them at the time. Three cranes were destroyed, and the dry dock damaged last night. Many bombs were aimed at the Blohm and Voss shipyards, where submarines as well as many other vessels are built.

Many night fighters, incessant antiaircraft fire and searchlights, including four cones of 45 lights each, offered a vigorous defence, but the bomber crews went methodically on with their work and aimed steadily in the thick of the barrage. The visibility was often good, and soon there were large fires in the area of the Blohm and Voss yards, with high-explosive bombs crashing down beside them. Elsewhere among the docks fire sprang from a shower of incendiaries, burned , with explosive violence, and for fully 20 minutes of the homeward journey lit up the sky. Black smoke rolled here and there over the harbour. A Manchester bomber made a low-level attack on a battery and searchlights on the coast north of Hamburg, and its gunner silenced a coastal battery with 800 rounds.