The Evening Star THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1944. BOMBING THE REICH.

Evening Star, Issue 25298, 5 October 1944, Page 4

The Evening Star THURSDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1944. BOMBING THE REICH.

The bombing of Germany just now is on as intense a scale as weather conditions permit, huge forces operating day hammering at industrial targets, but more particularly at key traffic centres and communications through and along which supplies must go to reach the Germans battling on the Reich's frontiers. It is reminiscent of the great attacks on communications systems in France in the eight weeks preceding D-Day, when road and railway bridges over a wide area were put out of commission, forcing the Germans to make long and time-wast-ing detours to* bring up supplies and reinforcements when our forces landed. These pre-invasion raids, which indicated to the enemy, as to the rest of the world, -what was.soon to break, were, incidentally, shrewdly carried out. Two bombs were dropped in vital sectors that could be -invasion points to every one dropped at the point actually decided upon, which helped to make the element'of surprise attending actual invasion in Normandy greater than ever. On September 12, General Eisenhower warned the German people that from then on they would not be saved from high-level and low-level attacks at any hour of the day and night, and we aire seeing his warning being put into effect. The scale and scope of the bombing, which includes highly successful strikes at night by Mosquitoes against trains carrying troops and supplies, are all part of the great plan whereby it is hoped to force a decision this year. Disorganise the enemy's communications and you disorganise his strategy. That was apparent in France once operations were properly under, way, and when the enemy is broken on the frontier the confused sequence of events that developed for him in France will be repeated. Two outstanding bombing achievements were reported yesterday—the partial draining of the highly important Dortmund-Ems Canal, in the Rhineland, following an attack by ninety-six heavy bombers, and the breaching of the great dyke on the Island of Walchcren, at the month of the Scheldt. This island, strongly garrisoned, constituted a threat to the Allied use of Antwerp as a port, where it appears tho Germans have at last been cleared from the water-guarded suburb of Merxem, giving us undisputed control of tho city. The breaching of the 200-foot dyke walls on Walcheren would seem to have disposed of the German garrison very . effectually, with the gnns

1 and defence posts likely to be tinder several feet of water flowing in at every tide.- The Walchereu exploit of 1944 contrasts sharply with tho Walcheren Expedition of 1809, usually referred to in history books as an outstanding example of how not to conduct a campaign. During the Napoleonic Wars it was decided to send a fleet and an army up the Scheldt to attack Antwerp, Napoleon's principal'naval station and arsenal The defences then, though formidable, had been neglected, and it was expected that the under-garrisoned fortress would soon be overcome. Instead, however, of obeying orders, the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Chatham, Pitt's elder brother, wasted time attacking Flushing, on Walcheren, a protracted proceeding which enabled the Antwerp garrison to be built up to such strength that it became apparent the original plan could not be adhered to. The British then established 15,000 men on Walcheren in order to compel the French to keep a strong force on watch in Belgium. The island was malaria-infested, and the inevitable happened. When the force was eventually withdrawn, 7,000 men had died and half the remainder were permanently disabled. This time it is the German garrison that is suffering ■ the great casualties, and the island, which comprises 52,000 acres, is unlikely to play any further part in the German scheme of things.