Newspaper cutting - I flew back to see Duisburg die

Newspaper cutting - I flew back to see Duisburg die

Articles describing two attacks on Duisburg twice in 18 hours. Includes b/w photograph of aircrew and William Troughton.

Newspaper cutting with text and b/w photograph

This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.

NWeedenRC170409-010002

Express reporter, twice over the Ruhr in 24 hours, tells of the 10,000 tons that wiped out a city

I FLEW BACK TO SEE DUISBURG DIE

First 'lap' over ..

By WILLIAM TROUGHTON
who flew on both raids on Duisburg on Saturday, and is the first war reporter to make a day and night raid in the same day.

[photograph]
WILLIAM TROUGHTON
Back in England from the first of his two flights to Duisburg. (He is the man in the centre.)
... Some of the thousands who manned the bombers on the first raid by daylight, he says, also made the double trip. They rose before 4 a.m., and after their return, before lunchtime, only had time for a wash, a meal, a quick nap before preparing for the night raid.

At an R.A.F. Station, 5 a.m., Sunday

THE medical officer on this station has just asked me to take a sleeping tablet – and I'm almost asleep on my feet. It sounded so silly that I had to laugh.

But the boys who have just come back from Duisburg are all milling round him with their hair dishevelled and their eyes heavy with the need of sleep, and they are taking his tablets. Funnier still, because only seven hours ago we were taking "Wakey-wakey" tablets from him to ward off sleep.

We were pretty tired then for most of us were setting out to bomb Duisburg again for the second time in 18 hours.

Now we are back – and we have left Duisburg behind us, dying. We have dropped more than 10,000 tons, including 500,000 fire bombs, on the city – one ton for every 45 of its inhabitants – delivered in two great raids of more than 1,000 planes each.

Twenty of those planes have not come back. That was inevitable, for Duisburg is still one of the most heavily defended cities of the Ruhr Valley. But our losses are surprisingly small, only .9 per cent.

And this is what happened in the two attacks:-

BY DAY.
YESTERDAY morning, when we saw at last the great waterways of Duisburg gleaming in the sunshine, the sky ahead of us was full of the aircraft that were going in with the first wave. They looked like a cloud of gnats. Behind us hundreds more were stretched across the sky.

Flying Officer J. Whitwood, of Norwich, stockily built, fair-haired young skipper of our Lancaster, put on his best guide manner and said over the intercom: "And there, Bill, on our port bow, is the great big Happy Valley."

But ahead of us ugly black smudges of smoke appeared among the gnats and slowly expanded into big black blobs. And suddenly a pale blue smoke trail spiralled down from the cloud of gnats in front.

"Somebody's got it" came someone's voice over the intercom.

Down in the dock area behind Duisburg's waterways that lie to

BACK PAGE, COL. THREE

[map]