BERLIN WAS CITY OF FIRE

Timaru Herald, Volume CL, Issue 22064, 10 September 1941, Page 5

BERLIN WAS CITY OF FIRE

Pilots Tell Of Wide Devastation

British Official Wireless

(Rec. 8.30 p.m.) RUGBY, Sept. 8. It is possible to give a fuller picture of the Royal Air Force’s heaviest raid on the German capital on Sunday night, the anniversary of the first heavy raid on London, from the reports of the crews who took part. So bright was the moonlight that the crews were able to see the streets of Berlin and the street crossings.

A rear gunner said: “You could easily identify the bigger buildings. It was so bright that you could make out the traffic moving along some of the streets. I expect that most of it was fire engines. Soon raging fires made even bettei- landmarks. As the bombers came in thick and fast buildings and streets away from the fires were glowing red in the light of the flames." Reports from many other stations give a more general picture of the success of the attack. There was an Immense fire near the Alexander Platz and the smoke from it stretched for miles to the east. Bombs were seen to hit buildings, factories, warehouses and railway yards. One crew reported a group of 50 small fires sending up a column of smoke several thousand feet high. Another crew reported three large fires which they saw for 25 minutes after leaving the city, and even then they only lost sight of them because of cloud. There were fires in all parts of the city and in the industrial suburbs as well as in the centre. Some idea of what some of the R.A.F. crews had to go through may be gained from the story of the crew of a Manchester. On the way to Berlin they avoided five enemy fighters and had no other trouble until they were over the city itself. "Then we were hit by anti-aircraft fire,” the pilot said, “but, we went on and bombed. The port engine was found to be rapidly getting hotter and to prevent it from seizing and probably catching fire I stopped the engine. There seemed to be little chance of getting such a long way back but we set a course for home and hoped for the best. Over much of the enemy country we were flying at 5000 feet and at this height we had to pass through a large belt of searchlights. We got through them all right but later we had to come down ever lower. When we reached the Dutch coast I decided to attempt the crossing, though I thought our chances of reaching the English coast were very slight. All the way back the rest of the crew were jettisoning everything we could spare. Eventually we landed at the first aerodrome after crossing the coast with very little petrol to spare. Not one of us received a scratch though the bomber was peppered with shrapnel holes throughout. On landing I found that the dinghy had been sent away and I got rather a shock when I thought how we might have come down in the sea.

The observer of a Wellington had a very different story to tell. He had been on 42 raids before but this he described as “one of the best nights I ever had. Everything went like clockwork. The navigation was 0.K., the searchlights did not worry us unduly, and the anti-aircraft fire was not too bad. You could see everything perfectly and we had no trouble with fighters. We went straight in, found what we were looking for and came straight out.”