ONE OF HARDEST BLOWS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXIV, Issue 39, 14 January 1944, Page 5

ONE OF HARDEST BLOWS

AGAINST NAZI AIR FORCE. THE BIG AMERICAN RAID. (N.Z. Press Association.—Copyright.) LONDON, Jan. 12. "The huge air battle over Ger : many yesterday inflicted one of the _ hardest blows yet struck against the German Air Force at a cost of approximately S pet cent, of the American planes," said the United States Air Chief (General Arnold). He added: "Three important fighter plane factories were smashed and their production wiped out altogether for months." The British United Press's correspondent at a U.S.A.A.F. base says: "Yesterday's great air battle over Germany seemed like a great naval engagement to the men engaged in it. German fighters flying in line abreast against the bomber formations fired broadsides of rocket shells. The Germans.even used destroyer smokescreens. Some of the crews admitted tnat they never expected to return home when the German attacks fully developed." A Luftwaffe pilot, Lieut. Westman, broadcasting over the Berlin radio, said: "The Allied air offensive is a veritable steamroller rolling over day and night. Our pilots are undergoing the same experience as the German infantry in 1917 when the first British tanks appeared. German air defence in the past 12 months has undergone the hardest test. We have had to develop a new system of elastic defence. Our pilots have to wait to the very last minute for their leader to decide whether it pavs better to go against the enemy fighters or against the bombers." FIGHTERS' LONGEST TRIP.

United States European Headquarters state that the U.S.A.A.F. fighters escorting the bombers flew farther into Germany yesterday than on any previous mission when shepherding them over targets in North-West Germany. They knocked out 28 enemy' planes. One group of long-distance fighters without loss destroyed 14 enemy planes and damaged over a score. This group has now raised its score to 32 planes destroyed without loss in three missions. The group flew over 400 miles to the target t and then engaged rocket-firing enemy planes in a violent combat while the bombers were dropping their explosives. The heaviest cost of a U.S.A.A.F. daylight attack was the loss of 60 bombers in the raid against the Schweinfurt ball-bearing works on October i 14. Other heavy bomber losses were 59 against Schweinfurt and Regensburg on August 1 and 49 against Stuttgart on September 6. The highest total of German figlitcrs shot down in an American raid was 307 in the Schweinfurt-Regcns-bufg attack on August 17.