FRENCH FACTORY BOMBED

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

FRENCH FACTORY BOMBED

GNOME-RHONE WORKS (8.0.W.) RUGBY, May 30. Last night the Royal Air Force attacked the Gnome-Rhone works at Gennevilliers, near Paris, which were heavily attacked on two nights during April. Considerable damage was done. The Fighter Command also attacked targets in occupied territory. One pilot saw strikes on six goods trains near Lens. The engines were stopped and the trucks blazed. Other pilots attacked and dislocated vital railway traffic. A Vichy message states the Royal Air Force last night destroyed the Goodrich rubber factory in the Parisian suburb of Colombes and also razed the Gennevilliers power station, which supplies factories in the whole industrial area of north-west Paris. Forty persons were killed and 100 injured in the attack, which lasted from 2 a.m. to 4.20 a.m. The importance to the enemy of the Gnome-Rhone aero engine works and other factories beside it is clearly shown, by the new defences which the British bomber crews* found there last night. These consisted chiefly of light antiaircraft guns, but there were heavy guns as well, and many searchlights. Night fighters were also seen. “The attack,” states the'Air Ministry News Service, “began in good weather, but the bombers had to search for their target between patches of scurrying cloud. The crews pin-pointed the works from the bends in the River Seine and other conspicuous landmarks. Thon they flew low in the face of anti-air-craft fire to make accurate bombing. “As we came in,” said one pilot, “my rear gunner saw a Messerschmitt 110 following. It was out of range and before it could close in I shoved the nose down and we slammed into a patch of cloud below us. Then we circled over Paris. We saw the Gnome-Rhone works clearly in the moonlight and made our run. The factory was dead in the,bombsight when the bombs were released. The reflection of the bursting bombs was startlingly clear in the river.”

STICK OF BOMBS HITS ENGLISH CEMETERY

(Rec. 6.30 p.m.) LONDON, May,3o. When a stick of bombs from a lowflying German raider fell on a cemetery in a south-east coast town last night scores of coffins were thrown up from graves and fragments of tombstones damaged nearby houses. A piece of marble from a grave was found on a road nearly a quarter of a mile away. In the moonlight the raiders were over a north-east coast town so low that the crosses could be seen on their wings. They dropped hundreds of incendiary bombs, in addition to high explosives, all of which fell in the country and set fire to farm and outbuildings. There were no casualties. A German communique states that the Luftwaffe last night bombed Grimsby harbour, the Humber estuary and Great Yarmouth harbour. Of the small number of enemy aircraft seven were destroyed. Of the seven raiders destroyed three were claimed by night-fighters of one squadron of the Fighter Command. One fell to the Beaufighters of Wing-Com-mander the Hon. Maxwell Aitken, D.F.C. (Lord Beaverbrook’s son). It was his second victim this month. Describing the combat, Wing-Com-mander Aitken said the bombers were creeping towards the coast in the cold light of the full moon. When he saw the machine he shot down he opened fire from astern with machine-guns and cannon. There was a fierce return of fire, which stopped suddenly. “Afterwards,” said Wing-Commander Aitken, “the bomber’s starboard wing caught fire and pieces flew off and it went into the sea.” Wing-Commander Aitken also attacked a Junkers 88, which was shot down by a colleague after Wing-Com-mander Aitken had exhausted his ammunition. The enemy blazed all the way to the sea. Another bomber was shot down by a balloon crew aboard a drifter, who gave it two bursts at 1000 feet range.