NO OPPOSITION

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 102, 2 May 1944, Page 5

NO OPPOSITION

' RAILWAY YARDS POUNDED

dec. 12.15 p.m,

RUGBY, May 1

Starting at sunrise, waves of United States Ninth Air Force fighters and fighter-bombers struck across the channel at regular intervals this morn* tag to continue the pounding of railway yards and to /search for enemy kircraft. A Lightning group peneSrated as far as Aachen, in Germany, krithout finding a single enemy fighter. Dther Lightning and Thunderbolt hnite roamed the skies over France, Belgium, and western Germany without opposition. The first waves of fighter-bombers, Mustangs and Thunderbolts, moved out bver enemy territory soon after dawn to bomb railway yards at Haine St. pierre and Namur, in Belgium. One iircraft''is missing. ■ Squadr.ons of Mitchell bombers of Ihe Second Tactical Air Force also resumed'intensive attacks this mOrnIng, the target being the Hirson railway yards in northern France. The whole target'was enveloped in smoke to 3000 feet. Flak was not particularly heavy. Fortresses and Liberators in medium strength attacked railway marshalling yards at Brussels, Rheims, Troyes, and Metz late-.this- afternoon. They -were escorted by strong forces of Thunderbolts, Lightnings, and Mustangs. RECORD IN APRIL. * United States Ninth Air Force Thunderbolt and Mustang fighter-bombers averaged two dive-bombing attacks a day in- April on targets in northern Franceiand Belgium, more than quadrupling the record in March. Ninth Air Force-fighters in April made over 6500 trips over the Continent, the highest number yet for that fighter command. Thunderbolts and Mustangs destroyed 86 German fighters in the air during the month, at a cost of 45 of their own planes. • Marauders and Havoc light bombers in April shattered every record for medium and light bombers when they released over 8800 tons of bombs in 5100 individual attacks on German targets ,in Europe. These attacks Were concentrated on a relatively narrow area of northern France and Belgium. They lost 19 Marauders and five Havocs during the month.—B.O.W. WASHINGTON, May 1.. Major-General Doolittle, Commander of the United States Eighth Air Force in Britain, declared, in a broadcast to 'American workers, that the Eighth ■ Air-Force in April dropped over 24,000 tons of bombs. Its fighters and bombers claimed the destruction of > more than

800 enemy planes in the air and more than 500 on the ground, which was substantially more than the entire German aircraft production in April. ■„ • The R.A.F., the Russians, and also the Ninth, Twelfth, and Fifteenth American Air Forces,-last month destroyed an additional large number of German planes. The Americans operating from Britain last month lost 359 bombers and 144 fighters.