The Air Ministry said German antiaircraft gunfire was intense and accurate.
"Some of our aircraft were holed the English coast. Three of the crew baled out and the other two men succeeded in bringing the bomber close to the beach with apparently very slight damage."
Other British bombers, the Air Ministry continued, raided warchouses along the Hamburg dockside, causing five huge fires. Other planes bombed a Bremen goods yard and "bright yellow fires" were still spreading some time after the last bomb was dropped, the Ministry said.
"Other sections of our raiding forces attacked oil supply depots at Gelsenkirchen, Magdeburg and Cherbourg; shipping at Emden; goods yards at Hamm and Soest; gun emplacements at Cape Gris Nez; and several enemy aerodromes in Germany and Holland," the Ministry declared.
Fleet Air Arm and Coastal Command planes, the Ministry added bombed Boulogne quays and railroad sidings Friday night—United Press
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.