BOMBING ISLANDS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 80, Issue 24631, 9 July 1943, Page 3

BOMBING ISLANDS

ITALIAN OUTPOSTS FIERCE AIR BATTLES DEFEAT OF AXIS FIORTERS (Reed. 7.16 p.m.) LONDON, July 8 The German news agency, quoting the Fascist Party Gazette, says that seven high Fascist Party officials were killed in a recent Allied air attack on Italy. Allied bombers and fighter escorts shot Axis fighters out of the sky over Sicily after two days of -fierce air fighting, in which the Italians and Germans lost at least 86 planes, according to correspondents in North Africa. B enter's Algiers correspondent says that von Bichtofen, as a result of the 'Allies' almost continuous attacks, has changed his tactics. He seems to be relying on anti-aircraft batteries instead of fighters. Pounding of Airfields The great question facing the Axis air chiefs in Italy, says the Algiers correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, is how long it will be before their air organisation in Sicily collapses completely in the face of the intense Allied attacks against airfields. The llome radio claims that the Allied air offensive cannot last. The British and Americana against Italy alone are losing 15 per cent of their planes, it is claimed. The radio says the Allies are losing a large number of trained air crews. Commenting on this, the British United Press described the claim as wild and suggested that it _ was prompted by a need to reassure Sicily's garrisons, which the Allies are incessantly attacking. The Berlin radio went one better when it claimed that the air defences in Southern Italy were growing stronger day by day. Heavier Onslaughts Predicted Reconnaissance photographs have revealed that the recent Allied air attacks against Sicily resulted in the destruction of several dozen enemy planes on a cluster of aerodromes at Gerbini, states Renter's correspondent in Algiers. Rail sidings at the Messina ferry terminus are dotted with hundreds of bomb craters. Major-General Lewis H. Brereton, commanding the United States Army Air Force in the Middle East, said in Cairo that intensification of air attacks against enemy targets during July was indicated. Long-range bombers of the United States Army Air Force were expected to strike more frequently with record-breaking bomb loads. General Brereton added that the Army Air Force in June made 2313 sorties in the Middle East and dropped 1600 tons of high explosives. New evidence of the effectiveness of Allied raids on Italy was given to-day by the German radio, which quoted a Rome report of an agreement between Italian employers and workers in certain districts under which night work is abolished.