R.A.F. IN BIGGEST RAID YET

Southland Times, Issue 24758, 1 June 1942, Page 5

R.A.F. IN BIGGEST RAID YET

OVER 1000 BOMBERS POUND GERMANY m ™ LONDON, May 31. (ReC. 1.5 3,m>) 1 V £ +IIA In the greatest air raid of the war, considerably more than 1000 bombers or Royal Air Force last night pounded Germany’s great industrial areas, the Ruhr an e Rhineland. Aircraft of the Fighter, Coastal and Army Co-operation Commands at t e same time raided enemy-occupied aerodromes in Europe and battled with German mg i - fighters which attempted to molest the bombers. In all the Royal Air Force lost 44 aircraft, probably less than 4 per cent, of the total number engaged. There is no doubt that the raid on. Cologne was an outstanding success. Pilots report seeing great explosions and fires and this morning a great pall of smoke anging over the city was visible from the Dutch coast. Air reconnaissance showed that the column of smoke above Cologne was 15,000 feet in height. The Prime Minister, Mr Winston Churchill, has sent a message to the Commander-in-Chief of the Bomber Command, Air Marshal A. T. Harris, congratulating him on the remarkable feat of organization which made possible the despatch of considerably more than 1000 bombers in a night and their concentration, without confusion, over the targets in so short a time as an hour and a-half. “This growing power of the Royal Air Force is a herald of what the Germans will receive, city by city, from now on, he concluded. ‘