CONFIDENCE SHAKEN

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21243, 14 October 1940, Page 7

CONFIDENCE SHAKEN

EFFECT OF RAIDS ON BERLIN GOERING’S FALSE ASSURANCES TO NAZIS GREAT DAMAGE BY ROYAL AIR FORCE (Official Wireless) (Received October 14, 1 p.m.) RUGBY, October 13 A bulletin issued bv tbe Air Ministry, describing tbe bombing of Berlin last night, states: — For over an hour the Royal Air Force attacked military objectives in tbe heart of the German capital. The vanguard of the raiding party reached the city shortly before 10 p.m. and met with heavy opposition from many powerful gun batteries, supported by an outer ring of searchlights, which encircled the capital. Maki/ig good use of the prevailing cloud layers, the raiders converged on the city’s centre from different directions, located their target through breaks in the cloud, and attacked in succession at short intervals and at varying heights. / Several tons of high explosives and hundreds of fire i’fombs were dropped within the target area, and although yS intervening clouds obscured the full results of the bombing, a number of large fires was started, one of which was visible from far beyond the city boundaries, b The central electric power station in the Moabit district received special attention, and here, too, fires wore started by incendiary bombs. Information reaching London from reliable neutral sources suggests that the Royal Air Force raids on military objectives in Berlin have severely shaken the confidence of the population of Berlin, who had been assured many times, and by Goering himself, that no British aircraft would be permitted to reach Berlin. Berliners now' realise that they must accept the presence of British aircraft overhead on any night as inevitable as long as the war continues, and they are no loncer being encouraged by the Nazi authorities to hope for a short war.