BRITISH BOMBERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 October 1940, Page 9

BRITISH BOMBERS

ATTACKS DRIVEN HOME IN SPITE OF SEVERE WEATHER. NAVAL BASES .AND OTHER OBJECTIVES. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, October 19. A Ministry communique states that bad weather, low cloud and severe iceing conditions hampered the operations of the British aircraft in raids last night over Germany. Nevertheless shipyards in Kiel and Hamburg were bombed and fires started by attacks on the aluminium works at Lunen, a factory at Dortmund and on . the wharves of the inland port of Duisberg. Railway and goods yards were attacked at Schwerfe, Osnabruck and Dortmund. All the British aircraft returned safely, but one is missing from a reconnaissance yesterday. The German dockyards were the main objectives of last night's raids? Low cloud and a heavy rainstorm over most of the German coastal areas greatly hampered the bomber crews, but successful attacks were launched against the naval bases at Kiel and Hamburg, on the commercial docks at Emden and Lubeck and on a number of other military objectives inside Germany.

At Hamburg attacks were directed against the Blohm and Voss shipyards, where warships are under construction. The overcast sky, with the cloud base at times down to 200 feet, made bomb-aiming difficult and most of the crews were obliged to spend a considerable time manoeuvring above the target area and waiting for a chance break in the clouds through which to attack. Despite these handicaps, the shipyards were heavily bombed in several individual sorties which began shortly after- midnight and continued at intervals for nearly 3j hours. Heavy damage is believed to have been caused in the Germania shipyards at Hamburg. The bombers forces over the Ruhrmet with more favourable weather. The important aluminium plant at Lunen was easily located in the moonlight and heavily attacked from a low level, in spite of intense and wellaimed anti-aircraft fire. Several tons of high-explosives and a large number of fire-bombs were dropped on this target. The crews reported violent explosions in the factory area, and fires which threw out greenish white smoke puffs, like a giant Chinese cracker as one observer described it.

The river port of Duisberg in the Ruhr was attacked from a low level. A stick of high-explosive bombs which fell across a dockside factory caused a long line of fires. A second stickacross the factory added to the intensity of the fires, which were still visible from the attacking aircraft 20 minutes after they had left the target area.

The aerodrome at Stade was also bombed.