Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1942-09-17, Page 7THURSDAY, GEPTEMSail 17, 1942 THE SEAFORTH NEWS PAGE SEVEN 2,000 R.A.F. Major Bombing Raids Between the end .of the. Battle of France on June 17, 1940, and the first of August 1942, Britain's Royal Air Force carried out more than 2,000 night raids on major targets alone in Germany and German-oc- cupied territory, excluding the hun- dreds of fighter -sweeps andraids carried out during daylight hours, and night raids on numbers of minor targets, ' Until the night of May 30-31, 1942, wl1en more than 1,000 British bombers roared over Cologne, the Battle of Britain, which raged from August 1940 to June 1941, impress- ed popular imagination as the great- est aerial struggle In history, So loudly did the Germans boast about attempts to carry out their threat of smashing Britain from the air, so generously did the world acclaim the brilliance of the British defense and the heroism of the British people un- der fire, that people are apt to forget that other battle which has waged continuously for two years, and is stillgoing on with ever-increasing intensity; the Battle of Germany, Those ninety minutes over Col- ogne on the night of May 30-31 were after all, but the concentrated high - spot of a battle which has been. fought relentlessly and with hardly a break since the fall of France. Began June 17, 1940. It was June 17, 1940, when Mar- shal Petain formed his government and formally asked the Germans for armistice terms. The Battle of France was virtually over, except for . mopping up operations, On the following night, that of June 18-19. the Battle of Germany began—the Battle of Greater Germany, in fact, since the Nazis had spread their armies and secret police, their Gaul- eiters and executioners over the whole of Western Europe. The calendar recorded thirteen ilknights before the end of that ugliest June in history;'the Royal Air Force bombed the Germans on eleven of those nights. By the end of the year they had been over Germany on 178 nights. One German or German-. \ occupied town or another suffered under British raids on 231 nights in the following year, and on ninety- four nights from the beginning of January this year until the end of July. Anxious as most of us are to see Munster, fifty-four; Duisberg, fifty- "a'Western. Front" opened, we must not let our ideas of It be based solely on the traditional method of landing armies on the European continent and driving the aggressorback over land. That, undoubtedly will be nec- essary before the enemy can be fin- ally defeated, There must be a Second Battle of Germany—on land, But the first Battle of Germany has already been waging continuous- ly for two whole years. Altogether British bombers have been over Germany and occupied territory on 523 of the 774 nights recorded by the calendar between June 1842, 1940, and July 81 -Aug- ust 1, 1942, The targets numbered in the total of 2,000 raids which are noted in the beginning of this article include only those which have been raided a doz- en Mines or more, plus one or two which have had fewer raids but are included for their importance as in- dustrial centers and ports. Innunter:- able smaller places, in addition, have heard the scream of the swiftly -fall, ing bomb and felt the devastating effects of high explosives. Looking back, the ordinary man would say—perhaps with disappoint- ment—that Britain has carried out few raids on Berlin. But the records show that Berlin has already been raided fifty-three times. On fifty- three nights have British bombers flown 600 miles through the darkness braving "flak" nearly all the way, rained down their bombs, and then flown the 600 miles back to their airdromes. During the same period, Ham- burg, the great Baltic port, had nine- ty-two raids; its sister -harbor, Brem- en, was visited nearly 100 tines, in- cluding the fatuous 1,000 bomber raid. The great marshalling -yards of Hamm, which appeared in the news so often that they gave rise to grim jokes, had eighty-four raids. Wil- helmshaven, another 'port, was raid- ed on sixty-six nights; Kiel, head- quarters of the German navy, on sixty-six nights. More Than 100 Raids. The night fighters and anti-air- craft guns, as well as the air raid wardens, rescue squads and clear- ance squads of Cologne had been forced into action by British raiders on 107 nights before the devastating ninety -minute raid carried out by more than 1,000 bombers on the night of May 30-31 this year. Em- den was raided seventy-seven times; The World's News Seen Through THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR An International Daily Newspaper is Truthful—Constructive—Unbiased—Free from Sensational- ism — Editorials Are Timely and Instructive and Its Daily Features, Together with the Weekly Magazine Section, Make the Monitor an Ideal Newspaper for the Home. The Christian Science Publishing Society One, Norway Street, Boston, Massachusetts Price $12.00 Yearly, or $1.00 a Month. Saturday Issue, including Magazine Section, $2.60 a Year. Introductory Offer, 6 Saturday Issues 25 Cents. Name Address SAMPLE COPY ON REQUEST f a Duplicate Monthly 'tateme t sivaszawavin We can save you money on Bill and . Charge Forms, standard sizes to fit Ledgers, white or colors. It will pay you to see our samples. Also best (pinllty Metol Hinged Sec- ' hone) Post hinders and ruder The Seworth News PHONE 84" two. The second four-figare-bomber. raid, carried out a couple of nights after the devastation of Cologne, was the fifty-second night raid Essen had had to suffer during the two years. Gelsenkirchen had had forty -on a night raids, Munster, fifty-four, Frankfort, thirty-one and Magdeburg twenty-five by the end of May 1942, The total of 2,000 raids includes 870 overnight on German-occupied Channel ports, in addition to innum- erable visits during daylight, Bou- logne topped the list with 130 night raids; 112 were carried out over Brest; ninety-eight over Ostend; ninety-five over Calais; seventy -ono over Flushing; Cherbourg', seventy- five, and Lorient, fifty-four. St. Na- zaire had thirty-seven night -raids alone during the period. Two thousand raids in just over two years, beginning' at a moment when even the inadequate Air Foreo with which Britain started World War II had been. battered almost to nothing in the Battles of Norway and France; two years during which the Air Force met and successfully beat off, with the aid of anti-aircraft Germany's tremendous assault on London and her devastating raids on other centers of industry and history —Coventry, Birmingham, Manches- ter, Liverpool, Glasgow, Bristol, Newcastle and Hull. Until the four -figure -bomber raids began on the night of May 30-31, the Battle of Germany had been over- looked verlooked by the compilers of contemp- orary history books. But in the his- tory books of the future it will oc- cupy its rightful place as one of the major battles of the war. Until the war ends and the German records are available to the world, the exact influence of this battle cannot be known; photographs taken from re- connaissance planes tell something; odd rumors occasionally seep out of Germany and her occupied countries but we cannot -yet know the extent to which this immensely stretched - out battle—stretched out in time as well as space—has hampered the German war machine. The heroic resistance of Yugoslavia so put back Hitler's program as to change the whole outlook of his war against Russia; the RAF's continuous night - bombing has a major influence on the war. Apart from the damage it has caused, this continuous raiding has forced Hitler to maintain in the west immense reserves of fighter planes, which would otherwise have been used against Russie; as well as enor- mous numbers of anti-aircraft guns, with a continuous supply of shells, searchlights and other apparatus. A traveller connected with a cycle company was expecting an "interest- ing event" in the family and before going away asked the nurse to wire "Gent's model arrived" if a boy came, and "Lady's model," if a girl. The wire he received staggered. him. There was one word "Tandem." Want and For Sale Ads, 1 week 25c. "The Happy Gang" Less than 22 hours after they had left the German industrial city of Saarbrucken in flames, this Royal' Canadian Air Force bombing "team" reached Ottawa to tell Canadians at first hand the sort of Job our airmen are doing overseas. These lads loosed their load of deadly bombs on Saarbrucken at 2.21 a.m. and they were in Ottawaby the following midnight to report that the Nazi city was "flaming likea ruddy circus." ' Pictured above on their arrival in Ottawa the lads are (LEFT to RIGHT) Flight Sergeant S. C. "Siggy" Lee, 29 -year-old navigator of the crew from Minnedosa, Man., Flight Sgt, M. G K..Sveinson, 24 -year-old wireless -operator from Elfros, Sask., Pilot Officer J. B. "Johnny" Higham, DFC., 22 -year-old "skipper" of the crew who hails from Assiniboia, Sask., Flight Sgt. Donald R. Morrison, 21 -year-old tail gunner who comes from Wolfville, N.S., and 10 -year-old Flight Sergeant Art Loaoh, front gunner and bomb aimer from Islington (near Toronto). 1$ While tete flames they had helped to Ignite were still consuming vast areas of the Gorman city of Sani• brudken, a Royal Canadian Air Force bomber crew landed at Ottawa recntly, little less than 22 hours after they had dropped their bomb Toad on that, nerve centre of Nazi industry. "It was flaming like a ruddy circus" was one of the lads report on his last glimpse of Saarbruelcen. Pictured above is Prime Minister King presenting a bowl of oranges to Sergeant Don Morrison, of Sherbrooke, 20 year cid wireless -air -gunner.