BIGGER AIR ATTACKS

Grey River Argus, 20 March 1945, Page 5

BIGGER AIR ATTACKS

AGAINST THE GERMANS Berlin's Worst Raid MANY OTHER AREAS ALSO BLITZED. (Rec. 6.30). LONDON, March 18. More than 1300 United States liberators and Fortresses attacked communications in the city of Berlin on Monday, and armament plants in tne, industrial suburbs. It was the record attack on the city by day. The attackers were more numerous than in the attack on February 26, whenM2oo bombers hit Berlin targets. Seven hundred Mustangs provided escort. Schlesischer, a rail centre, and a station and freightyards, both within two miles of the centre of the Reich capital, were attacked by about 1000 heavy bombers. The remainder attacked the half-mile square Bot-sig plant at Tegel, six miles north-west of the centre of the city, and the 120acre tank factory at Heninngsdorf, 11 miles north-west of the city’s centre. For more than an hour around noon the bombers sent down 30-ton salvoes every 30 to 40 seconds. Some 3400 tons of high explosives and incendiaries were rained on the targets. About 12,400 high explosive bombs, mariy of them 1000-pounders, and 650,000 small incendiaries were cascaded on the rail objectives. The Fortresses and Liberators swamped selected targets with over 670,000 high explosives and incendiaries. No fewer than 12,400 high explosives, including many: 1000pounders and 650.000 fire bombs from 1000 Fortresses fell on vital railyards near the centre of the city, while 300 Liberators patterned vast armaments plants in th e suburbs with another 8500 bombs, including large incendiaries. The assault shattered even the record of February 26, both in the number of planes used and the tonnage dropped. HEAVY BERLIN CASUALTIES. (Rec. 7.50). LONDON, March 19. A British United Press correspondent at Stockholm stated: Following the tremendous daylight raid on Sunday, a news blackout has been clamped down over Berlin. The only three Swedish press correspondents left in Berlin were not allowed to report anything beyond the official German communique. The Stockholm “Morgen Tidningen” quoted a radio source for th c statement that Berlin casualties were higher on Sunday than in any previous raid. The Schlesicher and Stettinger stations were very heavily damaged, thousands of goods wagons being blown up. A United States Eighth Air Force headquarters communique says that 700 Mustangs escorting heavy bombers, shot down 13 enemy planes in scattered air battles, including some with jet-propelled planes over the German capital. Intense anti-aircraft fire was encountered. Bombers hoed a path right down the centre of Berlin, where fires and explosions are raging, said one Mustang pilot. Among the Fortress pilots was Captain Don Ong, of China, who is flying his lifieth mission over Europe. Liberators, which struck the works at Tegel and Henningsdorf, laid down patterns of 1000-pounders and large incendiaries —about 8500 bombs in all. About half the bomber formations attacked visually, sighting their objectives through big breaks in the clouds over’ Berlin. The others bombed with the aid of instruments. The Plant attacked at Tegel produced a wide variety of materials for the German Army, Navy and Air Force, including anti-aircraft guns, field and machine-guns, tanks, armoured vehicles, bombs, and torpedoes. The factory was half a mile square. On Saturday night, R.A.F. Mosquitoes visited Berlin and Nuremburg. Crews on returning from the last named city said they saw fires still burning as a result of a heavy raid by Lancasters on Friday night. Fires were also seen burning in an industrial and communications centre 55 miles north-west of Nuremburg, one of Friday night’s targets. (Rec. 11.10) LONDON, March 19 On Sunday night R.A.F. bombers were over Germany in strength. The communication ctneres of Witteen (six miles south-east of Bochum) and Hanau were their main objectives. A Reuter correspondent stated:— Second Tactical Air Force Typhoons, after waiting four days for suitable weather, made a low-level attack on Sunday, and devastated the headquarters in Holland of Colonel-Gen-eral Johannes Blaskowitz, Command-er-in-Chief of the German Army group on the north Rhine front, also the headquarters of General Frederick Christiansen, Commander-in-Chief of German garrisons in the Netherlands. Thousand-pound bombs, incendiaries, and rockets wrecked a country house and villas in which both headquarters were situated. The attack left the buildings under huge palls of smoke. A Reuter correspondent with the Tactical Air Force said: On Tuesday Air Marshal Coningham’s force all day hammered towns immediately behind German defences facing the British and Canadian Armies. The principal targets were Borken and Bocholt. Coningham, despite bad weather, is committing his forces more and more against front-line Rhineland objectives. Tactical and strategical patterns are slowly being merged. The German supply position in Holland is so desperate that Spitfires over V bomb sites reported an important bridge south-east of Utrecht to be undefended by flak. Instances of the removal of flak batteries to the Reich a're becoming more frequent. There is every sign of a tremendous increase in air activity when the weather breaks. Even on Monday, despite clinging haze, the Tactical Air Force flew over 300 sorties. Spitfires made 16 rail-cuts in V bomb supply routes in Northern Holland, mainly around Utrecht, Rotterdam and The Hague.