10,000 PLANES

Grey River Argus, 16 February 1945, Page 5

10,000 PLANES

BOMB GERMAN TOWNS In Two Days [Aust. & N.Z. Press Association.! (Rec. 12. 10) LONDON, Feb. 15 Germany received a battering of ten thousand planes in about twentyfour hours. The Bomber Command made massive attacks on Tuesday night and Wednesday night. There was a great American daylight strike on Wednesday. Allied Tactical Air Forces made five thousand sorties on Wednesday. The. British Air Ministry News Service details last night’s attacks. It says: Bomber Command planes for the second time within twenty-four hours sent more than eight hundred planes over Germany for its first major attack on Chemnitz. The first attack was made at 9 p.m. and the second at 12.30 a.m. The Air Ministry described Chemnitz as one of tne very few large industrial towns remaining for the organisation of the defence of eastern Germany against the Russian advance and for the administrative control of' central Germany. Dresden is burning following an earlier double attack from British and American heavy bombers. Chemnitz has thus become even more vital to the enemy than previously. It is a desperately needed area wherein troops can be billeted, collected, and regrouped and to which Government and administrative departments driven . from other towns _ can be sent. Chemnitz is an important centre of the textile industry. With half Silesia already in Russian hands Saxony whereof Chemnitz is one of the largest towns, constitutes a vital German industrial reserve. Chemnitz is one of the main centres in a great railway network spreading to Saxony. . According to latest reports, Allied air forces operating on Wednesday from Holland to the Swiss frontier destroyed or damaged 300 locomotives, 3500 railway trucks, and 700 motor vehicles, and also made 250 rail cuts.

Fighters escorting the American heavy bombers which attacked Dresden and other targets on Wednesday shot down nineteen enemy planes and strafed railway lines over a wide area of Germany and shot up ninetyeight locomotives, and 185 railway cars. American losses figures are incomplete. It Was announced that only six planes are missing from fourteen hundred British heavy bombers which raided Dresden on Tuesday night. Nearly 650 thousand incendiaries and hundreds of four thousand pound bombs, together with many eight thousand pounders, were dropped. Crews reported smoke ris-< ing fifteen hundred feet. There was a thick belt of cloud between the German frontier and the target, which grounded many of the enemy s night fighter squadrons, though the weather was favourable over Dresden The German radio at midnight on Wednesday reported strong enemy bomber formations between Leipzig and Dresden flying in an easterly direction. The Bomber Command on Wednesday night, for the second night running, despatched a great force of over 1300 planes, of which Chemnitz, described as a vital base for the defence of Eastern Germany, was the main objective. The city was attacked twice. Another strong force attacked a synthetic oil plant, Rositz, south of Leipsig, and Berlin was also bombed.

IRcc. 11.30). LONDON. .Feb. 15. United States heavy bombers were ovex - Germany pn Thursday. The German ranio broadcasting to troops stajted the manufacture of many civilian goods in Germany, including articles of daily necessity had now completely stopped, and supplies at present available must last until the wax' was over. (Rec. 1.5) LONDON, Feb. 15

For two or there hours before it was officially anounced that American heavy bombers were over Germany to-day, German Achtung radios transmitted at five-minute intervals a series of dramatic warnings on the bombers’ progress in what was apparently a massive assault on Germany. Air activity over the east Anglian coast began before dawn, and increased until by daylight greater forces of American heavy bombers than were seen for some time had passed over towards Germany. Enemy radios by 11.15 a.m. had mapped the courses of five powerful waves across the Reich, and at the latest reported the greatest part of them had entered Saxony industrial areas. A continuous stream of warnings told of bombers stretched across more than two hundred miles of west Germany and Holland. German stations first reported bombers flying an easterly course north of Osnabruck, and then a few minutes later said they had turned southeastwards. While spearheads of the first force were reportedly approaching Thuringia, a second wave reached north-west Germany with strong fighter screens in the HanoverBrunsWick area. A radio at 11 a.m. reported the first formations over the Saxony industrial area. Thereafter at short intervals it reported progress of other formations going m various directions. The Associated Press says: lecnnicians at German stations broadcasting warnings were so excited thev forgot to cut out a musical piogra'mme, while a woman announcer who issued warnings was so excited that she misread many warnings, which had to be repeated. An Allied Mediterranean Air Force communique says: American heavy bombers yesterday attacked oil targets in the Vienna area, and railway yards in Austria and Yugoslavia. Fighters strafed railways in Austria and Yugoslavia, destroying locomotives and rail transport. R.A.lw heavy and medium bombers attacked railway yards at Graz. Medium fightei bombers concentrated on communications targets in north Italy and the ■Brenner route. Eight of our aircraft are missing. NEW ZEALAND PILOT’S FEAT LONDON, February 13. The Air Ministry news service stated * The alertness of a’ . New Zealand Tempest pilot led to an attack on a Luftwaffe landing strip tucked away in woods south of Hanover recent!}. He was Pilot Officer Owen Eagleson, D.F.C., who said. “Visibility was pooi, we were flying just under a cloud layer at two thousand feet when we passed over the woods. I spotted about twenty aircraft. They were Junkers fifty-two, and we shot them un ” Eagleson and 1 lying Olhcei John Stafford, of Rotorua, destroyed Iwo each. Stafford said, “There was lust an L shaped clearing hacked out of the woods which Eagleson spotted. Tt was a pity we didn’t have more ammunition.” ' The shortage ,of ammunition is understandable, since the Mew Zealand squadron on that operation had already damaged ten locomotives sixty-six goods trucks, and ™ s ?royed two motor vehicles and straffed six barges.