Danzig bombed in daylight. R.A.F.'s great exploit. Attack on submarine yards.

Danzig bombed in daylight. R.A.F.'s great exploit. Attack on submarine yards.

Clipping from an unidentified Indian newspaper regarding a Royal Air Force attack on Danzig (Gdańsk).

1942-07-12

One newspaper cutting

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CALCUTTA AND DELHI
14, 1942.
DANZIG BOMBED IN DAYLIGHT
R.A.F.’S GREAT EXPLOIT
ATTACK ON SUBMARINE YARDS
LONDON. July 12.
Roaring over their target at the height of a thunderstorm, lightning intermingling with gunfire, bomb explosions with peals of thunder, the R.A.F. on Saturday carried out its most daring and longest daylight raid of the war.
Danzig.[sic] the Baltic port.[sic] thought by the Nazis to be out of R.A.F. range, was the chief target involving a flight of between 1,600 and 1.800 [sic] miles for a formidable force of Lancasters which pounded submarine yards where ever-increasing numbers of U-boats have been constructed to harass our shipping lines.
Icing, electricity, heavy cloud and thunderstorms were encountered by the crews who flew as low as 50 feet and high as 20,000 feet, sometimes losing formation but never wavering from their course. Over this mediaeval town, with a violent thunderstorm raging. the R.A.F. swooped low to attack creating a Valkyrean scene as their bombs whistled down.
Other bombers went to the submarine yards at Flensburg, another Baltic Port, where delayed action bombs were dropped from 500 feet. One plane went so low that it crashed into a house but carried out its bombing and returned with bricks in its fuselage as souvenirs of this epic flight.
TWO PLANES MISSING
An Air Ministry communiqué says:-“Several squadrons of Lancaster bombers in daylight yesterday attacked important submarine building yards at Danzig.
“The attack was made from well below cloud base and the yards were heavily bombed. At about the same time other bombers attacked submarine building yards at Flensburg from a very low level. Bursts are reported on slipways. Three aircraft of the Bomber Command are missing from these daylight operations.
“Last night our bombers laid mines in enemy waters. Two of our aircraft are missing.”
The raid on Danzig was the second carried out by the Royal Air Force on this city. The first was on the night of November 10, 1940. when the railway junction was attacked in bad weather conditions with server electrical storms and lightning. The Royal Air Force on that occasion lost five planes.
The attack on Danzig is the longest journey for a daylight raid since the war began. Lancaster bombers were also used in the great daylight raid on Diesel engine works at Augsburg on April 27.
Flensburg is approximately halfway to Danzig. being in the Prussian province of Schleswsig-Holstein at the head of Flensburg Fjord, which runs into the Baltic north of the Kiel Canal. It has marine engineering schools, shipbuilding yards and iron foundries. The port was also raided by the Russians last year.
When the war began Danzig had four large dockyards, several floating docks and facilities for repair and maintenance of ships. The principal exports were coal, timber, sugar, grain cement, naphtha. [sic] iron and steel. Danzig was an important junction of air communications in peace time.—
[italicised]Reuter.