SHOT OUT OF SKY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21142, 9 July 1943, Page 3

SHOT OUT OF SKY

AXIS IN SICILY PROBLEM FOR ENEMY INTENSE ALLIED RAIDS (By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright. 1 LONDON, July 7. Allied bombers, with fighter escorts, shot Axis fighters out of the sky over Sicily after two days of fierce air lighting in which the Italians and Germans lost at least 86 planes, according to correspondents in North Africa.

Reuter's correspondent in Algiers says that Marshal von Richthofen, as a result of the Allies’ almost continuous attacks, has changed his tactics and seems to be relying on antiaircraft batteries instead of fighters.

The great question facing the Axis air chiefs in Italy, says the Daily Telegraph’s correspondent in Algiers is how long it will be before their air organisation in Sicily collapses completely in the face of intense Allied attacks against the airfields. The Rome radio claims that the Allied air offensive cannot last. The British and Americans against Italy alone are losing 15 per cent of the planes they are using and also a large number of trained air-crews. Commenting on this, the British United Press described the claim as wild and suggested that it was prompted by the need to reassure Sicily’s garrisons, which the Allies are incessantly attacking. The German News Agency, quoting the Fascist Party Gazette, says that seven high Fascist Party officials were killed in a recent Allied air attack on Italy. Record Bomb Loads The Berlin radio went one better and claimed that the air defences of southern Italy were growing stronger day by day. Major-General L. H. Brereton, commanding the United States Army Air Force in the Middle East, said in Cairo that an intensification of the air attacks against the enemy targets during July was indicated. United States Army Air Force long-range bombers expected to strike more frequently with record-breaking bom'oloads. The United States Army Air Force in June made 2313 Middle East sorties and dropped 1600 tons of 'high explosives. Reuter’s correspondent in Algierssays that reconnaissance photographs revealed that the recent Allied air attacks against Sicily resulted in the destruction of several dozen enemy planes on a cluster of aerodromes at Gerbini. Rail sidings at the Messina ferry terminus were dotted with hundreds of bomb craters. Fifty Liberators participated in the attack against the Gerbini aerodrome yesterday and dropped nearly 130 tons of high explosives and also fragmentation bombs.