Evening star., 1943-03-30
Berlin and Ruhr
Raided by RAF;
B Planes Lost
Bombers InfIict :.
Heavy Damage
On Reich Capital
BY the Associated Press.

LONDON, March 30.-The RAF
attacked Berlin and war plants
in the Ruhr Valley last night
with a loss of 33 bombers, the
Air Ministry announced today.
Sweeping over the Nazi capital
for the second time in three nights,
the British flyers inflicted heavy
damage and lost 81 'bonbers. while
another IL were missing from the
sweep over the Ruhr, the COM
munique said.
1t was the Goth raid of the war
on Berlin and the seventh this year.
Saturday night the RAF unloaded
900 tons of bombs in the greatest
raid of the war on Berlin, during
which nine bombers were lost.
Bochum, an important iron, steel
and coal center in the Ruhr only
10 miles east of Essen, also was
among the targets hit.
Second Costliest Raid on Berlin.
Last nights losses were the high
est the RAF has suffered in
single nights raid since September
16-17, 1912. when 80 bombers failed
to return from widespread raids on
the Ruhr.
1t was the second costliest attack
on Berlin. TWenty-eight aircraft
were reported missing from the
January 17-18 raid
The Berlin radio reported this
morning that 26 British planes had
been shot down.
The broadcast said the British had
unloaded their bombs aimlessly,
without even trying to hit military
objectives." 1t reported damage to
residential areas and civilian casu-
alties.
A later Nazi broadcast said Ber-
lin had been under alert for ap-
proximately two hours beginning at
1:30 am.
The Royal Canadian Air Force
announced that its giant Halifaxes
and Wellingtons joined the RAF in
the attacks on Berlin and the Ruhr
and that 10 of its planes were
among the 80 lost by British forces.
The Nazis struck back this morn
ing when four of their planes
swooped in low from the sea to drop
bombs on a town of the British
southwest coast. A direct hit was
scored on one house and some cas-
ualties were reported.
Reprisal Attacks Fail to Come.
The raiders met a whitening bar
rage from antiaircraft batteries and
one of the planes was blasted out
of the sky.
Expected German reprisal attacks
on London, however, failed again
to materialize during the night.
Authoritative sources said a few
enemy raiders had dropped bombs
at one or two scattered places on the
coast of East Anglia, but declared
no casualties and no damage had
been reported.
The Berlin radio, however, busy
keeping the propaganda wheels
turning, declared NaZi raiders had
made a concentrated attack on the
industrial city of Norwich.
In keeping with their smashing
day and night assaults on the con-
tinent, which were renewed Thurs
day with a heavy raid on Duisburg,
the Allies were keeping promise to
hit at the enemy every time the
weather permits.
The offensive was kept going dur
ing the daylight hours yesterday
when American-built Ventura bomb
ers of the Raj attacked enemy ship
ping at Rotterdam, industrial tar
gets in the Netherlands and railway
yards at Abbeville in France.
St. Nazaire Still Burning.
AS they struck smoke was reported
still rising high above the big, Ger
man submarine base at st. Nazaire,
which was subjected to a terrific
bombardment by the Raj Sunday
night.
The Ministry of Information re-
ported the attack had razed most of
the remaining buildings in the port,
which had been hit As times before
by British and American bombers.
The ministry quoted German reports
as saying only 500 of the $4,000 per-
sons who once lived in the city were
still residing there.
The German controlled Paris ra-
dio, meanwhile, reported that Sun
day afternoon raid on Rouen by
American bombers had killed SO per-
sons and left thousands homeless.
British bombers blasted the
Brown House, headquarters of the
Nazi party, during the concentrated
attack on Munich, March 9, in
which about so blocks Of CONNER
cial buildings were burned and ex-
tensive damage caused to military
establishments, the Air Ministry
announced.
Photographs taken 48 hours after
the raid, in which hundreds of tons
of bombs were cascaded on the Nazi
shrine city, showed fires still blazing.
Nazi Factories Damaged.
The Brown House was taken over
by the Nazis long before the party
came to power. The ministry said
the top floor, where Adolf Hitler
had a small Office. containing busts
of Napoleon and Mussolini and
(See RAIDS, Page A-5)
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