Damage To German Industrial Centres

Northern Advocate, 25 August 1943, Page 5

Damage To German Industrial Centres

(8.0. W.. 3 p.m.) RUGBY. August 24. Damage to three vital German bail and roller-bearings plants at Schweinfurt as a result of the American bombing attack on'August 17. is shown by photographs to be even greater than described in. the first estimates, and official tallies reveal that 147 enemy aircraft, not 75 as shc'wn in a preliminary report, were shot down, say United States Army headquarters in Britain. The official figure of 147 destroyed does not include any which may have been destroyed by the 36 bombers lost in the attack (no figures are yet available as to bombers lost or enemy aircraft shot down in the Regensburg raid by other formations of Fortresses on the same day). Today's report reveals that all three factories, together producing the majority of the German total output of bearings, were heavily damaged. The products of these plants are essential for almost every weapon, and the industrial machinery which makes weapons.

An adjacent factory, producing aircraft components of prime importance, was also considerably damaged, while great devastation was caused to rail communications, with probably severe dislocation of main-line traffic between Mannheim and Central Germany. The largest factory in Sehweinfurt, the Kugol-Fischer factory, shdiwed roof damage throughout its 15 acres of machine shops. Large machine-shops of other factories showed extensive damage, with offices and ether buildings destroyed or severely damaged by high explosives and fire. Twenty-five direct bits were seen on tracks through the railway station, die main buildings of which were gutted.