PANIC IN BERLIN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 87, Issue 39, 17 February 1943, Page 6

PANIC IN BERLIN

MOSQUITOES RAID CITY London, Feb. 10. A brutally frank account of the panic effect of the R.A.F.’s daylight Mosquito raid on Berlin appeared in the Axis newspaper Hungarian Pestihirlp. Describing the second raid it states that the alarm lasted for three hours. Commenting on the scene at the Wintergarten it says: “It was not easy to reach the shelters. Things did not go smoothly either. One thousand people were forced to descend a narrow staircase. In Friedrichstrasse, the main shopping centre, the turmoil was dangerous to life. From what I have seen the best lesson to be drawn 1b that it is best to stay at home if raids are likely because even a disciplined person can lose his nerve and a feeling of panic takes hold of people in such circumstances.”

During a recent daylight raid on London the shelters were not used, traffic continued to run and people walked in the streets unconcernedly.

The famous Lancia motor works, employing 4500 and producing 12$ per cent, of Italy’s total output of lorries, was destroyed at the end of 1942 in the Royal Air Force’s six great raids on Turin. It has also been established by aerial photographs that 70 industrial plants were hit, 65 acres of Turin severely affected and 24 public buildings damaged. The Ministry of Economic Warfare states that Turin’s production of all kinds of mechanical transport for at least the next three months will be very small. It also revealed that the Fiat works at Lingotto lost more than 13,000 square feet of roofing and suffered other serious damage in the same series of raids.