Word: raids
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Sanctuary. In a Chicago tavern a sign was posted on a slot machine: "In case of an air raid, stand next to this machine. No one has ever...
...autumn's fair weather there had been nights and days when a small raid or two and the endless slashing of Allied intruder aircraft against Germany's overstrained transport system were only pallid proofs that "Red" Harris intended to make good. But now, in January, when the winter was at its worst, the raids came hot, heavy and without cease. Perhaps, at long last, this was the promised beginning...
...Lancaster on the first raid was New York Timesman James MacDonald, winner of a coin toss that made him representative of the U.S. press. Carefully he noted that the big bomber whipped over the camouflaged decoys on the approach to the Reich's capital and planted its bombs in the midst of fires set by others ahead of it. When his bomber was 60 miles away on the trip home he could still see the red flare of Berlin's fires...
Through the raid Berlin's great antiaircraft defenses thundered in the night. But strong as they still were, they had apparently been reduced in strength to beef up the defenses of the Ruhr. Also it seemed that the gunners were not alertly on the job. Britain lost only one bomber. When the R.A.F. crews gathered, teacups in hand, for their interrogations back home, they agreed that few night fighters had come up to meet them...
...Berlin's 54th raid of the war, "Red" Harris had picked up the task he had pledged himself to resume. Next night his bombers were back again. But this time Berlin was waiting and there were night fighters, apparently drafted from the Ruhr, where they could ill be spared. And moonlight (instead of clouds as on the night before) gave them better opportunities. That night the R.A.F. lost 22 planes...