BLITZ OF GERMANY

Grey River Argus, 25 February 1944, Page 5

BLITZ OF GERMANY

AMERICAN RAIDERS Wiping Out Armament Works RUGBY, Feb. 23. On Tuesday ’ one hundred an d thirty-three German fighters were destroyed in air battles when the Eighth and Fifteenth United States Air Forces attacked aircraft industries and other targets deep inside German Official News Agency claimed that 194 American planes were shot down in the Regensbuig U.S. heavy bombers from ■ the United Kingdom on Tuesday destroyed 34 German fighter planes in then operations over Germany, and U.b. planes from Italy destroyed 40. United States fighters from Britain shot down 59. In three days operations aimed at destroying Germany’s capacity to maintain aerial resistance, United States planes accounted for 310 enemy fighters. Or these 153 were shot down by longrange fighters of the Eighth and Ninth Air Forces, and 117 by heavy bombers of the Eighth. Forty were destroyed by the Fifteenth Air Force bombers. Other enemy aircraft were hit bn the grounds of factories and parking areas. In addition to targets already announced, the Fifteenth Air Force bombed railway yards at Peterhausen. Italian-based heavy bombers also made diversionary attacks. Twenty heavy bombers and two fighters of the Fifteenth United States Air Forces are missing. The headquarters of the European theatre of operations has announced that in the raids on Peterhausen 15 Italian-based aircraft and not 22, were lost. Photographs made of Eighth Army Air Force heavy bombers during Tuesday’s attacks on aircraft factories in central Germany indicate direct hits were scored on . every major unit of the important Junkers aeroplane plant at Aachersleben. Good results were also shown .at Bernberg. During a large-scale air battle between the American forces and the German defenders, at least 34 enemy aircraft were destroyed by the bombers, and 50 by the escorting fighters. At least 30 additional enemy aircraft were destroyed or damaged on the ground by the bombers. ANOTHER U.S. RAID FACTORIES IN' AUSTRIA LONDON, Dec. 22. A strong force of American Liberators to-day attacked Germany’s two most important ball-bearing factories at Steyr, 95 miles west of Vienna, says the American Press Naples correspondent. A huge Daimler plant, which also produces Messerschmitt fuselages and under-car-riages, and a comparatively new factory nearby were bombed. These factories became the most important ball-bearing producers in Europe after the destruction of the giant Schweinfurt plant last October. The Berlin radio says that American heavy bombers, making a transalpine thrust, suffered a great reverse. German fighters, despite unfavourable weather, shot down at least 38 per cent, of the attacking forces, which were smaller than those which raided Regensburg yesterday.