ROUND-THE-CLOCK BOMBING

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24149, 7 January 1944, Page 5

ROUND-THE-CLOCK BOMBING

Day Raiders Return To Kiel

R.A.F. BOMBS PORT ON BALTIC

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 11.3 p.m.) LONDON. Jan. 6. A few hours after American heavy bombers had returned from a second heavy attack on Kiel yesterday, Royal Air Force heavy bombers left for a night raid on Stettin, the German Baltic port. Targets in Northern France were given another day of raids by bombers and fighter-bombers, while fighters swept almost withent any enemy opposition. Berlin’s sirens were sounded again last night, for a raid by Mosquito bombers. Swarms of rocket-firing Messerschmitts came up to meet the United States raiding .force and the Germans laid a smoke-screen over Kiel. In spite of this pilots claimed that the bombing was accurate and that fresh fires were started. The Americans claimed 95 German fighters shot down. The bombers destroyed 62 and the escorting fighters 33. The Allied losses were 25 heavy bombers and 12 fighters. The night attack on Stettin was described as heavy. This port has had several heavy raids. It is the capital

of Pomerania, and the targets include shipbuilding yards, machinery factories, chemical and cement works, and oil-refining plant. At the same time, Royal Air Force Mosquitoes were over Berlin, .western Germany, and northern France. From these raids 15 aircraft are missing. From the widespread day raids by Royal Air Force medium bombers, fighters, and fighter-bombers, all the aircraft returned. There was little enemy opposition. One large formation of Spitfires, sweeping over France, saw no enemy aircraft.

Huge forces of bombers and fighters took part in these operations, reaching across Europe from the west coast of France to Germany. Targets nearly 800 miles apart weie bombed. The cross-Channel offensive started at dawn and ended at dusk. When the American bombers, in great strength, blasted Kiel, Germany’s No. 1 U-boat construction centre, for the second successive day, the great shipyards were still belching smoke from the previous attack.

In France the bombers attacked the great airfield at Tours, from which German long-range aeroplanes take off to harry Atlantic convoys, and Bordeaux, where the Germans use another airfield for shipping reconnaissance aeroplanes.

NEW WEAPON USED

GERMAN 'AIRCRAFT TRAIL, BOMBS

CRec. 10.30 p.m.) LONDON, Jan., 5. The Luftwaffe fised a new weapon against the Fortresses and Liberators which bombed Kiel to-day—an aerial bomb on a wire behind the defending aircraft. One Fortress pilot said it looked like a 1001b bomb. It exploded harmlessly 30 yards from his ship.

He was unable to see how it was exploded. Another pilot said an aircraft with a trailing bomb sped through his formation. The bomb exploded with a big white flash just behind his Fortress, rocking it violently but causing no damage.

GERMANS' ADMIT DIFFICULTIES

DESPONDENT REPORTS FROM RUSSIA

LONDON. Jan. 5,

Nazi officials are admitting frankly for the first time that Germany faces a critical situation. Gloomy reports reaching neutral countries every day from Germany suggest that the Nazis can see defeat ahead. The “Berliner Boersen Zeitung” sdys: “Germany last year suffered political and military set-backs which would have brought collapse to any nation in the Allied camp. The New Year will bring still greater tests to be overcome, not merely for the fortifications, but for fanatical zeal.” German officers on the Russian front apparently fear that the terrible experiences their troops are suffering may turn the retreat into a rout. A panzer division officer, in an astonishingly frank broadcast to Beilin, said: “Our comrades are becoming very disquieted. We shoot like madmen, but the Russians have so many guns and are such brilliant marksmen that we are unable to achieve anything.- The communication lines between our retreating troops are constantly interrupted by guerrillas.”

A German war correspondent on the Russian front says: “It is almost impossible to live. let alone fight, on the Eastern Front. Our clothing is useless in the mud, rain, snow, and icy winds. Hot food never reaches our lines. We never get cigarettes. It is so terrible you cannot think. Many soldiers are ill, especially with? gastric trouble, and life on the Eastern Front cannot- be compared with anything.’’ A German Foreign Office spokesman told Swedish correspondents in Berlin that the German winter line in Russia had been split by the deep penetration of the Russian Army. The spokesman said that the two fronts left in Russia were 360 and 480-miles long. He did not expect German counter-attacks to regain the lost positions, but claimed that the Russians would be unable to roll up the German flanks because of the two long fronts still holding.

MILK SHORTAGE PREDICTED

AUSTRALIA’S FOOD POSITION

(Rcc. 11,30 p.m.) SYDNEY, Jan. 6. Australia's butter production has declined and a severe milk shortage is predicted for the winter.

The Commonwealth butter production for the five months ended November 30 was 64.912 tons—Booo tons less than in the corresponding period of 1942. t

Cheese production is slightly better than last year. For the flve months under review it was 18,455 ton?, compared with 18.433 tons for the corresponding period in 1912,