MR ASSAULT GOES ON

Evening Star, Issue 25461, 17 April 1945, Page 5

MR ASSAULT GOES ON

RAILWAYS AND TRANSPORT HAMMERED NINETEEN ENEMY PLANES SHOT DOWN I Rec. 11.15 a.m.) RUGBY, April 16. The air assault from the west on the diminishing German ''waist " in Central Europe goes on. The railway lines between Bremen and Hamburg were severed at several places yesterday, and motor transport on the west and east sides of the Elbe was attacked by fighter-bombers, The railway yards at Hersbruck, Donauworth, and Gunzberg were also attacked by medium, light, and fighter-bombers. {Railway and road transport in the areas of Dessau, iMuhlberg, Leipzig, Borna, Dresden, and Cheninitz, and airfields near Dessau, Leipzig, and at Marienbad (Czeclio-Slovakia) were attacked by fighter-bombers, which destroyed or damaged enemy aircraft on the ground. Enemy troops and strougpoints ahead of our ground forces in Central Germany, and strougpoints in the Lowenstein area at Neuhaus, and east of ■Stuttgart were hit by fighter-bombers. Nineteen enemy aircraft were shot down during the day. According to reports so far received, four of our fighter-bombers are missing. United States air headquarters states that in addition to attacking targets in the Bordeaux area, American bombers were also over Germany to-day. R.A.F. Coastal Command Halifases in the early hours of this morning attacked enemy shipping in the heavilydefended Norwegian anchorage of Rorvik. They made surprise attacks by light flares on merchantmen believed to be used by the enemy to supply U-boat bases in Norway. One. mediumsized vessel was left smoking and another was straddled with bombs. Fierce flak from shore positions met a Halifax which illuminated two merchantmen moving close into the coast. The bomb-aimer claimed a direct hit on one of the-ships, which was last seen with a thick pall of whitish smoke hanging over it. A Halifax released flares over Rorvik and saw a merchantman moving'.slowly, hugging the coast. Bombs dropped from .'5.000 feet straddled the target. Fortresses and Liberators this afternoon, in the day's second operation, attacked railway targets in Southern Germany, including the marshalling yards at Regensburg, Landshut, and Platting, and bridges at R'eginsburg and Strauging. They were escorted by more than 850 Mustangs and Thunderbolts.