Evening star., 1941-03-20
London
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furiously. Many other fires broke
out alongside the railway.
Oil storage tanks and three air
dromes in the low countries were
also successfully attacked.
None of our aircraft is missing"
The British night attack was the
Royal Air Forces 62d raid on Co.
logne. The city ranks as a highly
important part of Germany's war
effort, with munitions works, oil
plants and blast furnaces. The
Rhine, canals and railways there
are vital in the transportation of
war materials.
Some of the most thickly popu-
lated centers in London were heavily
damaged as the Germans gave the
capital its worst pounding of the
year after a series of nocturnal raids
on provincial cities.
A large number of bodies were re-
covered from the debris of a public
shelter hit by bomb.
In other outstanding examples of
destruction, heavy bombs split build
ings in two and a police station
was blasted apart, killing several
policemen on duty.
In many sections persons still
were trapped in debris in midmorn-
ing.
The government said preliminary
reports did not suggest very heavy
casualties"
There was little activity elsewhere
over England, though some bombs
fell on both sides of the Thames
Estuary and on the south coast.
Damage and casualties in these
areas were described officially as
small.
Though the Germans scattered
thousands of incendiary bombs over
London and started many fires, no
big blazes were seen when the all
clear finally was sounded.
Pounce on Fire Bombs.
Profiting by the costly lesson
learned in the great "fire raid" last
December %, when parts of the city
Of London were burned out, watchers
pounced on the incendiaries almost
as fast as they fell.
At one point a bus driver formed
his passengers into volunteer fire
brigade and they quickly extin-
guished so fire bombs which sizzled
into the street near the vehicle.
An intense barrage, which some
observers said was the heaviest of
the air war, greeted the Nazi raid
ers, but only one was reported shot
down.
Searchlights were used more ex-
tensively than in recent months in
an attempt to spot the raiders, and
at times the anti-aircraft gunners
held their fire, indicating British
night fighters were aloft.
The maternity ward of one hos
pital, in use as a temporary first
aid station, was wrecked and the
nurses sleeping quarters damaged,
but none of the patients was injured.
Five nurses were buried when de-
bris from floors above crashed into
their room, but they were rescued
with only minor injuries.
Fire spoilers on the roof of an
other hospital had narrow escape
when a high explosive bomb plowed
through the roof, wrecking one wing
Of the building.
In one section a printing plant
and weekly newspaper office, dam
aged in a previous raid, was hit
again and two fire watchers were
blown through the doorway of a
nearby building.
Five persons were killed and 9TH
ers injured in another section when
an apartment house was struck. 1t
was the third time that one tenant
had been bombed out.
In the German attack on the
London area a bomb which hit
suburban hospital where hundreds
of wounded men have been receiv-
ing treatment wrecked 20 wards
but only five casualties were re-
ported.
A qualified source, in comparing
the nights raid with attacks of the
past, said it was "by no means the
worst London has had but the dam
age was very heavy"
New Nazi Technique.
The Luftwaffe used a new pointer
technique.
Instead of sending over single
planes at intervals of a minute or
so, the attackers sent one raider
loaded with incendiaries to light a
target and then followed. in few
minutes with formation of 10 to
20 planes with heavy high-explo-
sive bombs.
Aviation circles asserted the tech
nioue failed to accomplish more
than the old one because, though
the interval between the pointer
plane and the heavy bombers was
only a few minutes, London's fire
squads were able to snuff out most
of the incendiary missiles before
blaZes started.
The change in technique was as
scribed to the lesson of the great
fire raid of December %. The Ger
mans then sent over fleets of fire
bombers and set parts of the city
of London ablaze-but bad weather
closed in before raiders with high
explosives could follow.
The aircraft carrying high explo-
sives last night few in line-astern
formation like day raiders did last
fall.