Great Bomber Blows on German Defences

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 124, 29 May 1944, Page 5

Great Bomber Blows on German Defences

Allied Air Fleets Pounding Enemy Targets (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) Received Monday, 12.40 a.m. LONDON, May 28. Bomber Command last night dispatched well over 1000 planes to attac** many objectives in Germany, France and Belgium and mine enemy waters, states an Air Ministry communique. A heavy attack was made against the military depot of Bourg Leopold. ±irst reports indicate that the bombing was well concentrated. The main objective in Germany was the railway yard at Aachen. Attacks were also made against Berlin, Dusseldorf and the railway centre of Nantes. The airfield at Rennes was heavily bombed and attacks were made against a number of military objectives on the French coast. Our planes had many encounters with night fighters, at least six of which were destroyed. Twenty-seven of ours are missing. Raiders last night sharply attacked a South Coast town. Successive waves dropped high explosives and incendiaries causing damage and casualties including some killed. The outpatients’ wing of a hospital was set on fire and a church was burnt out. Early to-day German radio warnings stated that large heavy bomber formations were approaching the Berlin area. Up to 2,000 United States aircraft—“very strong forces” of Liberators and Fortresses, escorted by Mustangs, Thunderbolts and Lightnings— 4 4 in very great strength” crossed the Channel again on Saturday in perfect weather “The targets,” says a communique, “were the railway yards at Ludwig shafen, Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Saarbrucken, Konzkarthaus and Neukirchen, and the railway yards, aircraft and engine repair factories at Strasbourg and Metz. “R.A.F. and Allied Mustangs flew supporting sweeps. Some of the bomber formations encoimtered fighter opposi tion and others none. The bombers claimed the destruction of 13 enemy aircraft and the fighters 36. We lost 24 bombers and seven fighters.” Daylong attacks were made on Saturday by medium bombers and fighters and R.P. (rocket projectile-carrying) Typhoons on airfields, wireless installation and transport targets and other military and industrial objectives in France, the Low Countries and Germany. Of the American fighters engaged in escorting the bombers and in a strafing hunt which took them as far as Coblenz, only one, a Thunderbolt, failed to return. Over 700 took part from the United States Ninth Air Force alone. No enemy aircraft would challenge tne strafers, who destroyed 16 locomotives and two military lorries and attacked a factory as well as flak gun emplacements near Dieppe. British, French and Dutch Mitchells and Bostons bomoed airfields on Cormeille, Creil and Evreux. Their Spitfire escort met no fighter opposition and had leisure to record the excellent bombing results on all targets.

Similar aircraft with Spitfires and Typhoons and escorted by spitfires, at tacked military targets in Northern France in the evening. The fighters returning from the bomb or rocket attacks on military installations made ground strafing attacks on at least two locomotives, a military train and Ger man army road transport. One squadron of Spitfires dived from several thousand feet to rake with cannon and machinegun fire three barges and a tug near Jaudebec.

In a raid early in the afternoon, Marauders heavily attacked four important railway bridges in Northern France, reporting the destruction of one span and serious damage to the other. At the same time, Havocs were attacking railway yards at Amiens. From these attacks, in each of which over 300 bombers took part, four Havocs are missing. Heavy flak was reported from ail the target areas, but only one enemy piane was sighted. A Swiss communique states that bombs were dropped at 1.30 p.m. in tne Forrentruy area (a Swiss town near Belfort). Swiss figaters ana antiaircraft guns went into action and five oomhers were forced to land. Marauders and xiavocs with escorting Thunder jolts on Saturday evening continued attacks against rauway targets in France. Marauders again uombed bridges in Northern Franca and Havocs again attacked railway yards at Amiens and Viciles. It is officially announced that more than 30* Marauders and Havocs took part in toth the afternoon and evening attacks in France. Eleven failed to return from a total of over 600. Thunderbolt lighter-bombers late on Saturday attacked railway yards, freight trucks, locomotives, tunnols, gun emplacements and other military targets in France. Two failed to return, The R.A.F. alter midnight bombed targets in the Boulogne area. Flares were seen falling between Cap Gris Nez and Boulogne after which there were violent explosions for 15 minutes whten shook Folkestone and other towns on toe English side of the Channel. Medium, light, fighter-bombers and fighters of the Ninth Air Force on Saturday ended a week of furiously increasing activity in which the bombers made 1950 individual attacks and fighters made 4800 against targets in Europe. The figure for the fighters is not only a record for the Ninth Air Force but probably stands as the greatest number of fighters anywhere ever thrown against the enemy. SPLIT-SECOND BOMB TIMING A new kind of bomb that explodes nine-thousands of a second after ini pact is being used with great success by American airmen, states the Ordnance section of the United States Air Service Command in Britain. American fliers can now control the explosion down to a ten-thousandth part of a second. The bomb is intended to destroy machinery'inside a factory and can be timed to explode in the centre of the plant after it has penetrated the roof but before it has passed through the building and buried itself in tho ground. A mistake of a ten-thousandth part of a second in the fuse’s time could be the difference between a factory’s destruction and merely tearing up a few yards of its roof.

Liberator bombers will soon be flying irom the Willow Run (Ford) plant at the rate of one hourly. More than 1700 Liberators have been shipped to other parts for final assembly and considerably over 1700 have already been com pleted at Willowrun.

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