AXIS AIR FORCES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 9, 10 July 1943, Page 5

AXIS AIR FORCES

A NOTE OF CAUTION

LONDON, July 9,

Reports from the Mediterranean continue to emphasise that the Allies have almost undisputed control of the air in the areas where they are hammering the Axis front-line defences. But the British United Press Algiers correspondent sound, a note of caution. He suggests that Air Marshal yon Richthofen is hoarding fighters with which he hopes to smash landing attempts. "The disappearance of strong enemy opposition over Sicily," .he says, "does not mean that Richthofen is running short of fighters. He has probably found the use of masses of planes against raiders too costly and fears that unless he is careful he will lack fighters when our land attack is launched. It is more important for him to save fighters to counter the invasion than to try to fight off bombers now." '

The Germans have ordered the evacuation of Cette, the French naval base on the Mediterranean coast, on the ground that it is an Urgently threatened sector, says Reuters Algiers correspondent. Hundreds of thousands of people are also moving from the string of towns on the extreme south of the Bay of Biscay, near the Spanish frontier.