“GREATEST OF ALL RAIDS”

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21850, 31 December 1940, Page 7

“GREATEST OF ALL RAIDS”

Heavy Battering Of U-Boat Base

By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright LONDON, December 29.

Tire principal objective of Royal Air Force bombers last night was again the German-occupied French base of Lorient, where considerable damage was done to docks, buildings and har - bour works.

Lorient is being used by the Germans as a base for their long-range oceangoing U-boats engaged in attacking merchant shipping. Oil depots at Rotterdam and Antwerp and the invasion ports of Cherbourg and Boulogne were also attacked.

Two British machines are missing. The press gives prominence to the fact that observers on the Channel coast last night were able clearly to see the progress of the relentless Royal Air Force bombing targets on the French invasion ports, which were described as the "greatest of all raids” on these targets. Attacks also were delivered on enemy coastal positions in the Low Countries. The repeated bombing last week of Merignac, the aerodrome near Bordeaux from which the Nazis send some of their heaviest bombers against Britain ocean sea routes, as well as the attacks on Lorient, have produced expressions of satisfaction that the “hornets” which try to sting British shipping are being continuously harassed in their neats. Lorient has been bombed day and night for three days.