SECONDARY RAILWAYS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 73, 23 February 1945, Page 5

SECONDARY RAILWAYS

TARGETS FOR AMERICANS. TROOP TRAINS STRUCK. (X Z Press Association. —Copyright.) (Rec 12.5 p.m.) LONDON, Feb. 22. Most of the main German communications centres had _ previously been put out of action ancl today’s attacks were directed chiefly against secondary routes which the Germans have been forced to use.

The Eighth Air Force led the parade with more than 1400 Fortresses and Liberators which ranged over a wide area chiefly around Hamburg, Leipzig and Chemnitz. Escorting Mustangs shot down at least three jetpropelled planes “after chasing them all over the sky, over the heart of Berlin and almost to the Russian lines.” , ... ' A Mustang pilot, describing the shooting up of a German troop train heading eastward from Nuremberg, said: “We swept hack and forth along the tracks spraying the whole train. We saw German soldiers pouring out of the doors and windows.” Another pilot describing the bombing of Nordhausen said: “There were so many planes in the air you could not move. There were fires everywhere. Big balls of flames were coming up higher than the planes themsefves. Boy, that country will never stop burning.” . , , , Eighth' Air Force targets included Luneburg, Stendal, Halberstadt, Ludwigslulst, Uelsen, Salzwcdcl. Wttenberg, Hildesheim, Peine, Northern!. Sangerhausen, and Gottinggen, each of which is a junction of two or more railway lines. NOT SATURATION RAID. Through cloudless skies the planes streamed over Germany from all directions with the object of completely paralysing enemy transport on roads, rails and canals, says the Exchange Telegraph Agency’s correspondent at General Montgomery’s headquarters. It was not a saturation raid because the planes split up into small groups, each with different targets.

The planes engaged.included heavy bombers from the R.A.F.’s Bomber Command., from the Britain-based United States Eighth Air Force and from the Italy-based United States 15th Air Force, medium bombers from the R.A.F.’s Second Tactical Air Force and from the United States Ninth Air Force, and fighterbombers from the R.A.F.’s Fighter Command, from the Second . Tactical Air Force and from the United States First Tactical Air Force based on the Continent. The areas attacked were divided into zones with one zone allocated to each air force. The Second Tactical An Force carried out its attack in its usual hunting-ground the Rheuie-Osnabruck-Munster triangle Inc Bomber Command went for. the head of the Ruhr and the Eighth Air Force bombed east of the Rhine, the Ninth west of the Rhine and the loth attacked a zone south oi that attacked by the Eighth.