EVERY COMBAT PLANE

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 118, 14 February 1944, Page 5

EVERY COMBAT PLANE

Massed Allied Onslaught At Anzio (British Official Wireloss.) RUGBY, February 12. Yesterday’s operations by Allied aircraft against enemy supply .shipping and positions in the Aegean Sea were particularly successful, states a Middle East air communique. Four small supply vessels and one barge were sunk and two damaged by cannon fire. One Junkers 8S was destroyed. Maritza and Calnto aerodromes on Rhodes were bombed last night and -Intruder aircraft over the island destroyed three Junkers 52’s. One of the slime had been shot down during the previous night. One of our aircraft is missing. The Germans have been temporarily isolated from their supply bases around the Anzio beach-head by the massed onslaught of the Allied air forces. This is revealed in late dispatches from Algiers. based on photographs taken after the full weight of the Mediterranean air forces—Flying Fortresses, Liberators; dive-bombers, and fighter-bombers—had struck in support of the hard-pressed British and -American ground forces.. Reuter’s correspondent says the photographs show that the roads leading from the five main German supply bases have been put out of action. It is revealed that planes yesterday flow nearly 1000 sorties over an area of approximately 10 miles by seven miles north of the beachhead in which lie the principal points of the road network behind the German linos.

Five towns attacked by heavy bombers were Albano, Cisterna, Ceceina Veletri and Campoleone We- lost six aircraft and the enemy three. An ammunition wagon in the centre of Campoleone railway blew up. adding to the devastation caused by bombs. Pilots reported that the railway yards and the whole town were covered by bomb strikes. A correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says that the Allied air forces threw virtually every combat plane in the central. Mediterranean theatre into a terrific onslaught against the Germans round the Anzio beach-head and thc z Rome area. Heavy bombers were diverted from long-range targets, to join medium bombers in an, intensive campaign in support of the Allied troops. Hundreds of tons of bombs rained down on the Germans in one of the greatest ground-support operations ever undertaken by the Allied air forces. In spite of the fury of the Allied air offensive. however, the Germans have, apparently retained the initiative in the ground-situation, and are lashing out in new attacks