AERIAL ENCOUNTERS

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 November 1944, Page 5

AERIAL ENCOUNTERS

OIL WORKS BOMBED RECORD “FIGHTER” BATTLE LONDON, November 2. “Strong forces, of Halifaxes last night attacked through cloud the industrial centre and base of Oberhausen, in the Ruhr. Almost at the same time Mosquitoes attacked Cologne,” reports tlie Air Ministry. “Other Mosquitoes bombed Berlin. In the afternoon a force of Lancasters, escorted by Spitfires and Mustangs, attacked other Ruhr objectives. “American Thunderbolts and Mustangs escorting heavy bombers oyerGermany yesterday destroyed three ipf-nronelled ’ Messerschmitt 2b2 s. This is the greatest number yet shot down in a single combat. “Every Fortress and Liberator oi the force of about 300 which yesterday raided the synthetic oil plant at Gelsenkirchen, and railway yards at Hamm and Cobl enze returned. One of the 250 escorting fighters is missA correspondent who flew with the Royal Air Force bombers oyer Cologne on Tuesday night says that'-files were still burning from the previous raids. Tuesday night’s raid reduced the city to ruins. Cologne had been wiped out in a week. The correspondent, who studied laige-scale photographs of the city, says: “More than 8000 acres have been devastated. The buildings left standing or usable can be counted on the fingers ol both hands. ’ In this city, where 750,000 people once lived, there is now nowhere for people to live and hardly anywhere for them to work.” An Air Ministry communique detailing Bomber Command and Fighter Command operations during the day and night on Wednesday states that seven bombers and two fighters are missing. A SHAEF report says: Allied light-er-bombers on Wednesday attacked another dam near Dieuze, which holdsback a lake of nine square miles, hitting dams at the southern end lour times. Other bombs landed on a road traversing the top of the dam which is five hundred feet long and 90 feet high. OIL PLANTS BOMBED. RUGBY, November 2. Over 1100 Fortresses and Liberators, escorted by over 900 Mustangs and Thunderbolts, in adverse weather, to-day, bombed synthetic oil plants in the Ruhr, and Merseburg. Attacked, to-day, for the twelfth time Merseburg is one of Germany’s largest plants. Before the concentrated attack against the enemy’s oil industry began, it produced 50,000 metric tons of synthetic products each month. GERMAN LOSSES 208 TO 69 (Rec. 1.15 p.m.)~ LONDON, Nov. 2. It is officialy stated that in the largest air battle between fighter forces ever to occur in the European theatre 208 enemy aircraft were destroyed to-day, during a United States air operation over Germany. One hundred and thirty were destroyed by fighters, 53 by bombers, and 25 on the ground. United States losses were 41 bombers and 28 fighters.

GERMAN NEW WEAPON

LONDON, November 2

The “Daily Mail’s” Stockholm correspondent, ’ quoting an authority “who is in a position to know what progress the Germans have made,” says: German scientists have completed a new series of experiments on “V2,” and are now satisfied that it is useable on a fairly large scale against England. “V2” is a fairly flat projectile. The first types carried about a ton of explosive, but larger weapons have been designed. “V2” is propelled by petrol or some other liquid. The .projectiles shoot up for distances ol 15 to 50 miles into the stratosphere. After reaching the maximum height they begin to glide back hitting the ground at 800 to 1000 miles an hour. If one lands in an area where you are standing you don’t hear it coming because they travel faster than sound. The projectile looks like a comet when falling at night time. They can be fired at England from bases in Germany, Holland, Norway, and Denmark.

FIREWATCI-11 NG RELAXED

LONDON, November 2

A substantial reduction in night fireguard duty in London and other parts of the country where firewatching is not completely relaxed was announced in the House of Commons by the Home Secretary (Mr. Morrison). The number of fireguards required for duty would henceforth not exceed 50 per cent of the number at present required. he said, and the reduction in larger business premises would be appreciably more. The object of the relaxation was to release from duty during the present lull are many fireguards as possible, but to maintain a skeleton service which could be operated speedily is the enemy resumed or was believed to be likely to resume incendia'ry attacks.

U.S.A. STRENGTH

WASHINGTON, Nov. 2

The Air Force of the United States Army now includes 12,000 first-line ’planes in combat overseas and 6,000 ’planes behind them as a ready reserve. An Army spokesman said that twelve thousand was the largest number of ’planes that any air force in the world has ever put into battle at one time.

The War Production Board announced that the United States built a total of 232,403 ’planes between July 1. 1940, and September 30 1944. They included 75.000 bombers, 70,000 fighters, 18,000 transports and 50,000 trainers, as well as specialised types.