TENS OF THOUSANDS

Grey River Argus, 17 February 1945, Page 5

TENS OF THOUSANDS

KILLED IN DRESDEN U.S.-British Air Raids to Aid Russians r Aust & N.Z. Press Association.] '(Rec 10.40). LONDON. Feb. 16. The Stockholm paper “Dagens Nyheter’s” correspondent •in Berlin stated: Following the raid of Tuesday Dresden become one huge inferno, in which tens of thousands of people perished. At the time when the city was raided, all the cinemas, churches, and schools were crowded with women, children and aged people, taking refuge from the East. They had small chance to find any shelter. The oss of life was enormous. The Swedish radio said the Dresden raid casualties are estimated at from twenty to thirty thousand. Two hundred thousand of the city’s swollen population of one million are already fleeing. Dresden shook at noon on Thursday as it was bombed by over 200 Fortresses, states United States Headquarters. This was the second . consecutive days Dresden was attacked, and in addition a second force of about 450 Fortresses attacked the vital railway centre of Cottbus, 40 miles south of Frankfurt-on-Oder, just ahead of the advancing Red Army. At the same time about 350 Liberators attacked the Brabag synthetic oil plant at Rothensee, just north-west of Magdeburg. The bombing at all three targets was through clouds. Dresden and Cottbus are both control railway lines supplying the German armies which are fighting to stem Marshal Koniev’s advance in Silesia. Next to Berlin, Cottbus is the most important railway junction on the route from west and central Germany to the Eastern Front. The Brabag oil plant near Magdeburg is one of the four largest synthetic oil plants in Germany believed to be still active. (Rec. 1.10) LONDON, Feb. 16 Dresden, which had been planned by the Germans as a substitute capital. is dying. The German News Agency said: Dresden is now a heap of ruins. It has been smashed to atoms. Since Wednesday this city, previously almost untouched, has been carpeted by heavy and super-heavy explosives and incendiaries. The “Daily Express" points out that Dresden was a major city in the German war effort. As a railroad junction it had been used to pump German troops into counter-attacks against Marshal Zhhkov’s army. The “Daily Mail” states: A senior R.A.F. officer has recently been with Russian commanders establishing a closer liasion for air assaults, ibis week new tactics taking the utmost advantage of current weather were used. Attacks in front of the Russian armies have been greater than ever before. The R-A-F. and U.S.A.A.F. have been providing the Russians with a weapon which they could not supply for themselves. Ihe obiect of the destruction goes beyond blocking road and rail, communications. It aims at deprivng the Getman armies of all possible refitting centres and permanent quarters. Well over ten thousand tons ot bombs have been dropped by Allied planes in a 48-hour onslaught against the German railway system facing Marshal Koniev’s forces in the East. A Daily Telegraph air correspondent says: Although the main load has been concentrated on railways, part of the effect has been directed against highly important oil targets behind the Eastern Front. The German railway system in the West also has- had its share. It is considered pandemonium must now reign all along the lateral railway from Berlin through Magdeburg, Leipzig, Chemnitz and Dresden. Most of the bombing has been designed to prevent the strategic concentration of the German Army. An Allied attack on Cottbus for the first time introduced heavy bombers into tactical battle on the Eastern Front, if the German ■report is true that the Russians were only 12 miles away. Inclusion of oil targets south from Berlin is likely to hinder still further the enemy’s mobility. . The Times, in a leading article, says: Strategically the most surprising feature of the great battle in the East is Marshal Guderian's failure to organise any counter-offensive. Two explanations for this enemv passivity have been suggested. Probably both are true. They ar e that ,he has run short of oil, and that his rearward communications are failing, both having derived from the unprecedented fury of the air onslaught which has been falling on Germany continuously day. and night.

RAIDS IN EAST GERMANY 21 U.S. PLANES LOST (Rec. 9.50) LONDON, Feb. 16. There are fifteen bombers and six fighters missing from the recent American raids on Dresden, Kottbus and Rothensee. AUCKLAND AIRMAN. DESTROYS A GERMAN PICK-A-BACK ’PLANE. LONDON, February 14 Flying Officer R. E. Lelong, D.F.C.. Auckland, flying a Mosquito, destroyed a German pick-a-back composite aircraft on an airfield in Denmark to-day. Lelong’s gun sights were out of action and he had to point the nose of his aircraft at the composit ’plane and aim the guns, by watching the path of the tracers.. Lelong said he and another Mosquito dived across the airfield several times, mowing down the crowds of ground personnel around the ’plane. When we left the composite and another ’plane were blazing furiously. We riddled another composite nearby.