VAST ALLIED AIR FLEETS

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 205, 27 May 1944, Page 7

VAST ALLIED AIR FLEETS

Cross-Channel Raids TARGETS IN FRANCE AND BELGIUM LONDON, May 25. Never before during the war have the people of the English coastal towns seen or heard such vast Allied air fleets as have crossed the Channel today. There was a ceaseless drone of planes, in formations numbering uip to 250, for nine hours after 7.30 p.m. With Allied airmen striking from this country while American heavy bombers flew in from the south. The attack from Italy was directed against railway yards in France, southeast of Toulon and in the area of Lyohs. More than 750 heavy bombers from Britain attacked nine marshalling yards and four airfields in occupied France and Bele*The targets, too numerous to mention, spread over the countryside of north-east France and ns far as Brussels and Liege in Belgium. The bombers flew under the protection of American, R.A.F. and Allied fighters. , . . As well as carrying out their escort duties, the fighters attacked more than 30 locomotives and strafed German troops. They shot down nine enemy planes. Four heavy bombers and 12 fighters are missing. Vichy radio stated that the number ot casualties in the Lyons raid appears to be high. . . . , The Luftwaffe made no concentrated attempt to intercept the heavy bombers over northern France and Belgium. Despite the flak, which was fiercer than ever, the bombers hit their objectives along a 100-iuile front behind the West Wall defences. The Exchange Telegraph _ agency s aviation correspondent says it is believed that between 750 and 1000 bombers and from 500 to 750 fighters participated in the Eighth and Ninth Air Forec bombings. Typhoon bombers this afternoon made a direct hit on a 600-ton tanker off Ostend and left it sinking. Four Britisli carrier-borne fighters over Aalborg shot down 11 of 20 German planes belonging to German air training camps in Denmark, says the British United Press Stockholm correspondent. The trainers, each with four occupants, were engaged in flying exercises when the British planes reconnoitring between Jutland and the Norwegian coast swooped on them. A Danish eye-witness said: “It was a fantastic sight. The British fighters buzzround the German planes like angry wasps.’’ The Vichy Minister of Information, 51. Herriot, today bitterly attacked the Allies for their raids on France. “Railway traffic is at a standstill,” he said. “Factories have been closed and reserves exhausted, and French workers are losing their jobs and starving as the result of these raids. “The raids, supported by saboteurs, have left power stations and machinery in ruins. Yet Frenchmen celebrate this as a victory every time a factory is scientifically smashed.” A message from Zurich, Switzerland, says another 320 Indians, making a total of 480,, have reached Switzerland after escaping from a French prison camp near Epinal, 190 miles from Paris, during confusion caused by air raids last week.