BOULOGNE AREA

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXIV, Issue 159, 5 June 1944, Page 5

BOULOGNE AREA

STRONG ALLIED BLOWS INSTALLATIONS BOMBED (N.Z. Press Association. —Copyright.) (Rec. 10.55 a:m.) RUGBY, June 4 German military installations iu the Boulogne area were attacked this morning by > IVtresses and Liberators of the Eighth Air Force. Thunderbolts and Mustangs provided the escort. A similar force of bombers made n second attack in the same vicinity later. They were escorted b> Mustangs. On Sunday afternoon Marauders and Havocs of the Ninth Air Force attacked military objectives along the coast of Northern France and a highway bridge at Courcelles-sur-Seine, 40 miles north-west of Paris. Thunderbolt fighter-bombers, attacked bridges, railroad tracks, and military rolling stock on the Oise River.—Official Wireless.

ALLIES' DOUBLE PUNCH. With a double punch against the enemy's "rocket coast" positions in the Pas de Calais area and the sustained blasting of communications in France and the Low Countries, the Allied Air Arm yesterday maintained the terrific intensity of its softening assault says the Press Association. About 500 Fortresses and Liberators delivered a double attack on Pas de Calais. The Press Association's aviation correspondent estimates that 5000 tons of high explosives have been cascaded down on the Pas de Calais emplacements in 36. hours. The Pas de Calais has been hit day after day for 50 I days.

One fighter is missing from yesterday's attacks. No enemy fighter opposition was encountered in either attack, but pilots reported that the flak was so heavy that they had to By by instrumentsAn Air Ministry communique reports that R.A.F. bombers on Saturday night attacked military installations on the French coast, also Ludwigshaven. Mines were laid in enemy waters. All the bombers returned. Rocket fighter-bombers and fighters struck throughout Saturday at all forms of enemy road and rail transport, radio stations, fuel dumps and other military objectives over a wide area in Northern France and the Low Countries. Indications are that the day's attacks on road transport were ■among the most • comprehensive yet attempted. Rockets when fired from a low-flying Bcaiifightnr are so devastating that one pilot describes them as "having the power of a 6in naval gun." Over 20 Spitfire bomber squadrons took part in one operation alone with instructions to destroy military transport wherever found in the. Caen and Cherbourg peninsula area. Bombing-carrying Mustangs attacked fuel installations at a number of points and other operations included anti-shipping patrols and offensive sorties deep into occupied territory. German lorry convoys, staff cars and the occupants " and even dispatch riders fell a victim to Spitfires which strafed and bombed a ground level and, as one pilot put it, "cleaned up (lie roads till our sector of the countryside looked absolutely dead, apart, from bonfires hero and there to mark our attack." Other fighters shot up military trains and locomotives, and one Spitfire squadron bombed parked goods wagons in railway yards. WRECKING RADIO NETWORK. Specially-trained >lots of rocket-firing Typhoons and precision-bombing Spitfires are systematically wrecking the Gorman radio network in Europe. In the past four days pilots under the command of Air Chief -Marshal Lcigh-Mallory, Commander-in-Chief of the Allied air forces i.i the went, have flown another 7000 sorties, greatly adding to the serious damage they have already inflicted on French transport systems. Reconnaissance revealed that the station at. Tours is among the rail centres rendered unserviceable. Renter says that Radio Calais, one of the most important in the German European network and extensively used for propaganda, has not been heard since 12.27 a.m. on June 1.

An enemy minesweeper was loft ablaze and an escort vessel poriously damaged by Coastal Conininnd Mosquitoes oft Belle Isle in the Bay of Biscay last night. The Vichy Minister of Information (Henript), "i a broadcast, said raid warnings and the increasing number of raids had reduced Fronohmep to an acute stato of nerves. Tho French had come to wish for a speedy Allied invasion not because they wanted it to succeed but because it. would end the present uncertainty. Wide guesses were being made at the invasion date and its location.