NAZIS PRESSED

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 294, 11 December 1943, Page 5

NAZIS PRESSED

AIRCRAFT SHORTAGE

Heavy Bomb Havoc In Industrial Centres

Rec. 10.30 WASHINGTON, Dec. 10

Allied bombing has reduced German production to 1500 planes a month, mostly fighters, said Colonel Ray Clifton, instructor at the General Staff School, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The formation of five infantry divisions from Luftwaffe personnel indicates a German aircraft shortage.

Colonel Clifton listed the following damage to German industrial centres:—Essen. 75 per cent destroyed; Emden, 60 per cent of town and dock areas destroyed; Bremen, 20 per cent; Lubeck, 40 per cent; Rostock. 70 per cent; Dusseldorf, 75 per cent destroyed, SO per cent of the people homeless and 25,000 killed; Cologne, 60 per cent destroyed; Hamburg, 75 per cent destroyed, between 15,000 and 20,000 killed and 35,000 homeless.

Colonel Clifton added that Lorient, in the Bay of Biscay, was mostly destroyed and the heavy concrete submarine base was working at 20 per cent capacity. In Berlin widespread damage had been caused and 125.000 people had fled during September, while an additional 500,000 were living outside the city.