BIG AIR BATTLE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 11, 14 January 1944, Page 5

BIG AIR BATTLE

U.S. LOSSES REPLACED At Least 152 Nazi Fighters Shot Down N.Z. Press Association—Copyright Rec. 2 p.m. LONDON, Jan. 13. American Dombers and Allied fighters shot down at least 152 German fighters in the great'air battle over German fighter-plane factories on Tuesday. This is revealed in a statement issued by United States European Headquarters. Bombers shot down 125 and fighters 27 enemy planes. The figures, which are not yet complete, do not include the large number of planes shot down by bombers which failed to return to their bases. The total American bomber loss is now given as 60. The Americans have already replaced the planes and air crews lost in the great air battle over Germany on Tuesday, says the Evening Standard correspondent with the United States forces. Great replacement depots arrange such replacements within 24 hours The United States Army official newspaper Stars and Stripes announced that the delay "in assessing the results of the air battle was duo to a fog, which unexpectedly settled over the airfields before the raiders returned home. Many of the bombers had to be diverted to distant airfields, and it is believed that some at present listed as missing may have landed safely in more isolated parts of Britain. Cost Approximates 5 Per Cent The huge air battle over Germany inflicted one of the hardest blows yet struck against the German Air Force at a cost of approximately 5 per cent of the raiding American planes, said Lieutenant-General H. H. Arnold, chief of the United States Army Air Corps, in a statement in New York. General Arnold said three important fighter plane factories were smashed and their production was wiped out altogether for months. European headquarters of the United States Army Air Force states that American fighters escorting the bombers flew further into Germany yesterday than on any previous mission, shepherding the bombers over targets in north-west Germany. They knocked out 28 enemy planes. One group of long-distance fighters destroyed 14 enemy planes and damaged over 20 without loss to itself. lioss In Earlier Raids The heaviest cost of an American daylight attack was the loss of GO bombers in the raid against the Schweinfurt ball-bearing works on October 14. Other heavy bomber losses were 59 against Schweinfurt and Regensburg on August 17 and 45 against Stuttgart on September 6.

The highest total of German fighters shot down in any American raid was 307 in the Schweinfurt and Regensburg attack on August 17. A Luftwaffe pilot, Lieutenant Westmann, broadcasting over Berlin radio, said: "The Allied air offensive is a veritable steam roller, rolling over us day and night. Our pilots are undergoing the same experience as the German infantry in 1916 when the first British tanks appeared. German air defence in the past 12 months has undergone the hardest test. We had to develop a new system of elastic defence. Our pilots have to wait, to the very last minute for the leader to decide whether it pays better to go against the enemy fighters or against the bcmbers."