TWICE BOMBED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 80, 6 April 1942, Page 5

TWICE BOMBED

LORRY WORKS AT POISSY SEVERE DAMAGE DONE Rugby, April 2. Last night Bomber Command aircraft bombed industrial objectives and communications in west and northwest Germany. In occupied territory bombing attacks were made on the Matforcl works at Poissy and on the docks and shipping at Le Havre. Mines were also laid in enemy waters. British fighters attacked objectives in Belgium and northern France. During these attacks an enemy bomber was destroyed. Fifteen of our bombers are missing from the night’s operations. The light of a full moon made the huge square block of the Matford car factory at Poissy, near Paris, a conspicuous target. The attack was as low as could be made, and preliminary reports show that the factory, which makes lorries for the German army, was hit. The weather was perfect for the raid, in striking contrast with that experienced by our bombers raiding industrial and communications targets in north-west Germany.- 8.0.W. Rugby, April 3. An Air Ministry communique states that our bombers again attacked the Matford works at Poissy last night. The docks at Le Havre were also bombed. Fighter Command aircraft attacked enemy airfields and targets in the occupied areas. From all these operations two of our aircraft are missing. The second raid on the Matford works by Wellington and Stirling bombers is described by the Air Ministry news service. The bombing was accurate and concentrated, and from night photographs taken during the attack it is beyond question that this great factory was very severely damaged. These photographs show a volume of smoke pouring up from the factory and streaming out a mile into the country. The Renault and Matford factories between them produce about 2000 lorries a month, or roughly half the lorries made in France for the German army. In Thursday night’s attack more anti-aircraft fire was met than on the night before, with some guns on the site of a factory which soon went out of business, and a few heavy guns around the building. But the attack was pressed home from a low level. The pilot of one Wellington bomber said that when they got over the factory they saw another Wellington doing left-hand circuits, and they joined in waiting for zero hour. The factory was unmistakable. Several other Wellingtons and Stirlings were also circling around waiting for the attack to begin. Then the flares went down and someone dropped a bomb or two into the factory, which lit it up even better than before. Then all the planes seemed to let go their bombs and in a few minutes the place was ablaze Gradudally the factory became hidden by smoke, but the glow of fires underneath could be seen. As the Wellington left, the pilot said, his wireless operator reported a terrific explosion from one of their really heavy bombs.—B.O.W. VICHY REPORT OF DAMAGE London, April 2. Vichy radio said that the R.A.F.’s forty-live .minute raid on Wednesday night resulted in severe damage at Poissy. One factory was destroyed and two damaged, five houses were destroyed, and 400 damaged, and a railway line near Poissy was damaged, but it is hoped to restore it soon. The R.A.F. also dropped leaflets in Paris. THOUSAND-POUNDERS GIANT ’’EGGS” OF R.A.F. ■ Rugby, April 3. A vivid account of the effects on the enemy of the British “high duty” bombs has been given by Group-Cap-tain Helmore. Broadcasting on the new tyoes of aircraft capable of transporting these giant eggs, he said that they had come into use only through visual evidence and aerial photographs or through a certain type of eye-witness report. ' Could the moral destructive effects of our bombing effort be measured, the big “high duty” bombs had certainly left their mark on German morale, just as they had left their mark in recent weeks on enemy factories. shipyards, and chemical plants. At the huge Renault works the potential yearly output, sufflcient to equip three fully mechanised divisions was left a twisted mass of wreckage before the almost incessant wave of those giant detonations, whose blast, as the aerial photographs show, swept away whole districts like chaff before a whirlwind. Smashing three divisions in Russia would cost many lives. There would be no more tanks from Renault for many a long day. The submarine-building town af Lubeck, Germany’s feeder port to the Baltic, was given in three hours a 50 per cent, greater weight of bombs than Coventry ever received during the worst of its long raids. During this nightmare of destruction it was calculated that a weight of a 10001 b. bomb fell every 15 seconds during the three hours’ attacks and fell well and truly within the target area, for it was'a clear, moonlight night.—B.O.W.