SERIOUS EFFECTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 24, 28 July 1944, Page 5

SERIOUS EFFECTS

BOMBING OF ENEMY FUEL SUPPLIES

(Special P.A. Correspondent.) LONDON, July 27. All the Allied air forces based in Europe are co-operating in an all-out offensive against Germany's fuel supplies, says the air correspondent of "The Times." They are the R.A.F. and the United States Eighth Bomber Commands, the United States 15th Air Force, the R.A.F. First Tactical Air Force in Italy, and the United States Ninth and the R.A.F. Second Tactical Air Force, operating partly from Normandy and partly from southern England. The correspondent says that now that severe damage has been caused to the main producing centres, notably Ploesti, it is regarded as profitable to bomb more localised supplies such as dumps and storage capacity. In France, for instance, the chaotic state of railway and road communications means that if local supplies can be depleted the enemy may find himself with inadequate quantities. In France and the Mediterranean area, German vehicles have been found abandoned for lack of oil or petrol. "It is estimated," the correspondent adds, "that the June output of oil from refineries under German control was only 70 per pent, of '.he output before the intensified attacks started, and that synthetic oil production has been cut by half." Another report says that an almost unbelievable position has arisen in Rumania, where no refineries are left to deal with the oil oh the spot, while Rumanian transport is in a chaotic condition because of bombing and lack of rolling-stock. The Germans tried using the Danube, but repeated mining of the river has made transit dangerous and doubled the length of time of transit.

The gravity of the position for the Germans is further emphasised when it is realised that the whole southern front in Russia and the German troops in the Balkans were supplied from Rumania.