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APPENDIX VII.

Air Attacks on Enemy Territory in Europe.

Extracts from Recent Raid Assessment Reports.

The following reports of damage have been received during the past week from air reconnaissance and Intelligence sources :---

Germany.

Wilhelmshaven.-A reliable report stated that the damage was considerable and gave a specific instance of the destruction of three naval barracks with severe casualties. This report was confirmed by photographs taken by P.R.U., which disclosed major damage and that such damage is for the most part confined to the Bauhafen area. In the photographic interpretation 17 different items of damage are particularised, comprising gun and clothing stores, carpenters' and boiler-makers' shops, a navigation office and a smithery, the town barracks, the fire station and the post office, and buildings in the Kaiser, Victoria and Roon Strassen.

Cologne.-About the end of December the main station was badly damaged and a bomb which just missed the Hohenzollern Bridge caused many casualties.

A

Berlin. The damage caused to the U-Bahn in the Tauentzien Strasse on the 15th/16th December had not been fully repaired by the 14th January. bomb which fell on a house in the Steinplatz caused the death of 26 persons.

Düsseldorf. On the 28th/29th December a gasometer received two

direct hits.

Politz. Two reports were received from sources believed reliable stating that heavy damage had been caused to the synthetic oil plant. No details were given, but, in view of several reports received of results of attacks upon this target, it is considered the attacks must have been successful, although details are not known.

General. The account of a Swedish sailor shows the lengths to which the Germans go in their efforts to remove and conceal damage. He stated that just before Christmas direct hits destroyed a whole block of Bremen houses. Clearing operations were started immediately and by Christmas Eve the site of the buildings had been converted into an open square upon which Christmas trees were being sold. When passing through a lock where a bomb had heavily damaged the middle sector the ship's pilot maintained that the sector was too narrow and was therefore being widened. Building operations were, in fact, already in progress to make it look as though this was being done.

France.

An informant saw the remains of a munition train at Rennes and of another at Le Mans, which had received direct hits. There was little left to describe. He told of a highly successful raid on Villacoublay aerodrome when bomb-loading operations were in progress. Many aircraft were destroyed on the ground.

Gt.

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