BOMBS DROPPED IN BRITAIN

Southland Times, Issue 24167, 2 July 1940, Page 6

BOMBS DROPPED IN BRITAIN

DESULTORY ATTACKS ON THREE AREAS NO SERIOUS DAMAGE REPORTED SCHOOL DESTROYED BY FIRE (United Press Assn.— Telegraph Copyright) (Received July 1, 9-20 p.m.) LONDON, July 1. The Air Ministry announced that raiders made desultory attacks on three areas in Britain. In eastern England, high explosive and incendiary bombs were dropped, apparently directed against aerodromes. In Wales and the west of England high explosive and incendiary bombs were dropped. No serious damage or casualties are reported from these areas. An east Scottish town was attacked with incendiary bombs and a school was destroyed by fire. One person was slightly injured. There were no further casualties. The Hamburg and Bremen radios faded out at 9.20 p.m. during an account of “unsuccessful” attacks by Royal Air Force bombers. The stations at Konigsberg, Stuttgart, Breslau, Saarbrucken, Vienna, Frankfurt, Prague, Cologne, Munich and Berlin went off the air at 9.45 p.m. On Saturday afternoon a formation of Royal Air Force bombers carried out surprise attacks on the Abbeville aerodrome. The hangar was hit, four enemy aircraft set on fire and others damaged, says an Air Ministry communique. All the British aircraft returned safely. FACTORY ATTACKED At night Royal Air Force bombers made attacks on a chemical factory at Hochst and left it in flames, on the Dortmund-Ems canal, on the marshalling yards at Soest, Hamm and Gremburg, on military objectives in the region of Baden, on others near Cologne and in the Bois de Chimay in South Belgium, and on aerodromes of Norderney, Borkum and Schipol in Holland, Barge and Munster in northwest Germany, and Me Ville in France. Damage was done to all these objectives. Three British aircraft are

missing. . Next morning a formation of bombers again attacked the Me Ville aerodrome and bombed enemy aircraft on the ground. Three British aircraft failed to return. A patrol of fighters engaged a number of Messerschmitts over the French coast and shot down one. , In the afternoon British bombers attacked railway sidings and goods yards at Vignacourt, north of Abbeville. Fires were started among rolling stock on their return journey. The aircraft were attacked by a formation of Messerschmitt 109’s. Royal Air Force fighters intervened and shot down four aeroplanes. All the British aircraft returned.

It is officially stated that enemy aircraft crossed the east and south coasts during Saturday night and dropped bombs at a number of points. British fighter patrols were active and the enemy was nowhere able to deliver a heavy attack. The raiders damaged an infirmary in a Midlands town and bombs falling in residential quarters caused casualties. Other attacks made at scattered points in the East Midlands, the south of England and near the Bristol Channel were ineffective. TWO PERSONS KILLED The raiders attacked a Scottish town with high explosives and incendiary bombs, but no damage or casualties are reported. The casualties so far known total two persons killed and eight injured. Apparently mistaking villages in the south-east of England for some industrial area, German raiders dropped 24 bombs, causing only broken windows and craters in cornfields and pasture land. There were no casualties.

ARMISTICE ACCEPTED BY FRANCE (British Official Wireless) RUGBY, June 30. Weekly journals discuss the armistice accepted by the French Prime Minister (Marshal Henri Petain) and are unanimous in regarding the capitulation of France as complete. The Spectator says: “France has put herself, or the Bordeaux Government has put her, by the tragic prodigality of the surrender unreservedly in Germany’s hands.” The New Statesman and Nation considers the attempts of Marshal Petain and his colleagues to maintain that they saved France’s honour. “Honour” is a much abused word. It is not dishonourable to lay down your arms in a hopeless situation, but what other word than dishonour can be applied to an agreement to hand over to the Nazis the refugees to whom France had given protection? That may involve a massacre of some of the noblest men and women in Europe. With the Spaniards, who may soon find themselves in the same case, these militant fugitives from fascism number several hundreds of thousands. Another act of dishonour affects us as the Allies of France, for Mr Churchill, when at last he had to face the fact that the French were incapable of further resistance on their own home soil, agreed to release them from their pledge to conclude no separate peace if they would first send the French Fleet to British ports. There was time enough for this, but Marshal Petain has consented to hand over the French ships to the enemy. The Spectator also draws attention to a point of interest—that the area of occupied France under the armistice terms turns out to be precisely the same as the area of France marked as to be brought permanently under German domination in maps found early in 1939 among the papers of Herr Konrad Henlein, the Sudeten German leader. FIFTEENTH CASUALTY LIST LONDON, June 30. The War Office’s fifteenth casualty I'st announces that one officer and 18 rankers previously reported missing are now prisoners. Three officers were killed or died of wounds, 17 were wounded; two are missing; 24 rankers were, killed or died of wounds; 115 were wounded. The Air Ministry casualty list contains 325 names and includes 202 missing, 31 killed in action, 30 killed on active service, three died of wounds, and 17 previously reported missing, now prisoners of war.