FOUR-HOUR RAID ON KIEL

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21788, 18 October 1940, Page 7

FOUR-HOUR RAID ON KIEL

Direct Hits On Dock Germany Deeply Penetrated United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright (Received October 17, 6.30 p.m.) LONDON, October 16. Naval dockyards at Kiel and oil supply centres inside Germany were the principal objectives of the Royal Air Force heavy bomber squadrons last night. Many ether targets in Germany and Germanoccupied territory included aluminium factories, docks, railways and aerodromes. The raid on Kiel was almost continuous, a series of attacks lasting four hours in which tons of high explosives were dropped on the dockyards. Direct hits were scored on the jetty of the torpedo harbour, also the marine academy. The Deutschewerke shipbuilding yard and the dockyards southeast of the main jetty were repeatedly straddled while nine heavy bombs burst along the western border of the Germania Yard. One salvo apparently struck a fuel storage point and started a huge fire which lit up the targets for further attackers. Other raiders struck deeply into Germany and bombed important oil refineries, storages at Magdeburg, Gelsenkirchen and Saltzbergen, also more than 20 different railway centres. Other objectives included targets at Grevenbrotch. Cologne, Schonebeck, Neuhaldensleben, Lunen and Dusseldorf, also docks at Hamburg and Duisberg. A raider directly hit a supply train near Lunen. Fires broke out in the railway yards at Dusseldorf and Neuss. Raiders on Antwerp early in the morning hit warehouses and railways. Precautionary Alarm There was a night alarm in Berlin but the Official German News Agency announced that this was merely precautionary and that no British aeroplanes were over the capital. The German report stated that the British machines penetrated to a point in the province of Brandenburg, but turned back earlier than usual, and departed for home after doing only very slight damage. For nearly an hour aeroplanes from two squadrons, one of which was a New Zealand squadron, constantly bombed the oil plant at Bohlen, south of Leipzig. The first aeroplane stated four large fires. The bright moonlight and the leaping flames clearly outlined the great refinery for the second raider, which caused a violent explosion, after which a column of white smoke rose CjOO feet. The flight for the attack cn the oil refinery at Bohlen began in weather which one pilot described as “filthy.” but which improved so quickly on the journey that he had never known visibility so clear on any previous raid. “Over the Ruhr, for instance, we could see factory chimneys, railway bridges, and viaducts and we could even pick out streets in the towns over which we passed,” he said. “We had a good look at Leipzig and then flew south towards the oil refinery at Bohlen. A flare which we dropped hampe ed rather than helped us because of the glare of it on the slight haze on the ground. In any case the moon w s bright enough to show us all we wanted to see. There is a railway running roughly alongside our objective and we came practically dead over the line, dropping bombs in one stick from south to north over the target. “As we turned round we saw our bombs burst right ,on the target. There was no doubt about it. For 30 seconds after they landed there were some pretty hefty explosions, about 100 to 2/0 yards apart. About a minute and a half later there was a colossal upheaval. First I saw a huge shower of sparks, then suddenly a great white column of smoke or steam shot up. It rose practically dead straight about 6000 feet. It amazed everybody in the aircraft.”