RAIDS ON BUDAPEST AIRFIELDS

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24237, 20 April 1944, Page 5

RAIDS ON BUDAPEST AIRFIELDS

MANY PLANES HIT ON GROUND (8.0. W.) RUGBY, April 18. “A detailed study of bomb strike and reconnaissance photographs reveals that 91 aircraft on. th’e ground, most of them Messerschmitt 410's, were destroyed or badly damaged in the Allied heavy bomber raids on the Tokil and Becserf aerodromes near Budapest last Thursday,” says a correspondent in Naples. "On the Becses aerodrome 51 aircraft were knocked out, Including 20 Messerschmitt 410’s, and 11 were damaged, including threeMesserschmitt 410’s. On ’the Tokol aerodrome 40 aircraft were made unserviceable, including 29 twin-engined Messerschmitts. and 11 Messerschmitt 410’s damaged. “Interpretation of a series of bomb strike photographs taken during the raid, beginning with a clear shot of the airfield before the bombs were dropped, left no doubt as to the extent of the damage. Twenty-pound fragmentation bombs were used and it is known that aircraft within a 35 .foot radius were destroyed-, and aircraft within 75 feet damaged. The photographs also showed that heavy bomb craters on the runway had made the field temporarily unserviceable."