AERIAL INVASION STARTED

Evening Star, Issue 25169, 8 May 1944, Page 3

AERIAL INVASION STARTED

ALLIED PRELIMINARY BOMBARDMENT RUGBY, May 6. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Air, Captain H. H. Balfour, speaking at Broadstairs to-day, said: "Wo are on the threshold of big events, but if vou are waiting for the hour which you think will herald the second front, let me say the second front has already begun. Every battle has its preliminary barrage, and the enormous air bombardment of the last month can be compared with the artillery bombardment which preceded the battles of the Somme and Vimy Ridge. When land operations start, they will be all the same a part of that main battle which has been already opened bv the British, Dominion, American, and Allied air forces. " Surely no one can question that the invasion of Europe has come about with several thousand airmen invading Berlin the other morning. At the same time over other parts of Germany there has been during the month of April an invasion .from the air by day. engaging man power to the number of .approximately 75.000: The aerial army of Bomber Command during April, in addition, put some 55.000 men above the enemy's key points in Germany and the occupied territories, destroying