PRECISION BOMBING

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 10 March 1943, Page 6

PRECISION BOMBING

AERIAL MOTOR-BIKES SUCCESS AGAINST NAZI STRONGPOINTS The Yu.2, says the “Soviet War News,” is only canvas and plywood, but it can land and take oil from anywhere in complete darkness. Its speed is GO to 75 miles an hour. The noise of its engine reminds you of a motor-cycle, but it can bomb at night with a precision undreamed of by any dive-bom-ber pilot.

The Yu.2 pilots trained last autumn for night flights. In winter the planes were available in quantity. By early spring the Yu.2 bomber squadrons were unloading hundreds of tons of bombs on German positions every night.

As soon as darkness falls an incessant drone fills the sky over the enemy lines. German searchlights stab the sky, AA guns and machine-guns fire at random, but the aerial motorbikes are not in the least disturbed and continue to circle around. Lighting the area with flares, they drop small bombs into ravines crowded with German troops, on roads packed with moving columns, on houses where the enemy has his headquarters.

The German A.A. gunners, after much labour, gauged the speed of the Yu.2 and began to fire more accurately. But the Soviet airmen developed a new bombing method. They climbed as high as possible, sighted the target, then glided down in complete silence and dropped their loads right on the Germans’ unsuspecting heads.

BOGEYS IN THE AIR Nazi soldiers began to write home about some strange kind of Russian aircraft—some queer monstrosity with noiseless engines or no engines at all. A few nights ago a squadron of Yu.2’s bombed the grounds of the aviation school and airfield, which are now occupied by the Nazis. Big German units are camped in the grounds. Many of the Yu.2 pilots lived and studied at the school not long ago, so they know the place from back to front. Targets are allotted with extreme precision and the crews report back in equal detail. I heard a pilot tell his commander that he had dropped his load on the block next door to where he used to live.

All night long the airmen keep at it, with no more than ten minutes —sometimes as little as five minutes—between landing and taking off for the next flight. The moment a plane lands a truck laden with bombs drives up, and while the crew is reporting and being briefed for the next flight the plane is made ready to take off again. Reports are very laconic. “Flight lasted an hour 35 minutes; altitude 2,600 feet.” The pilots spend from seven to nine hours in the air each night. Each man makes five or six flights and drops tons of bombs. On occasion the aerial motor-bikes do just as good a job as the heavy bombers; sometimes even better. During a short lull a squadron leader told me something about their operations. The crews come partly from military schools, partly from the Osoviakhim (Soviet A.R.P. Society). Some of them, who had reckoned on becoming fighter pilots, were at first not too happy when they were assigned to a Yu.2 squadron; but before long they got to like the work and developed an affection for the Yu.2. JOBS NIGHT BOMBERS CANNOT DO Here, where the front passes from house to house, from settlement to settlement, and runs zigzag along wedges, the Yu.2 can tackle jobs that no night bomber could do. The Germans entrench themselves in a particular house. The Yu.2 can plants its load fair and square* in the middle.

When half a house is held by the Germans they can bomb that half, leaving the rest of the building undamaged. Their low speed enables them to hit a target unerringly. They can bomb on sectors where the Germans dare not risk action for fear of destroying their own troops.

Yu.2 pilots are now thoroughly used to their machines and are all experienced night fliers. Each one has made flights totalling hundreds of hours. They suffer hardly any losses. In the past six months only two Yu.2’s have failed to return.

The Germans are unable to bomb their aerodromes because there aren’t any in the accepted sense. The pilots will tell you they can land by the light of a cigarette—an exaggeration, but not an outrageous one. The Yu.2 can land anywhere by the light of two pocket torches.