AUSTRIAN PLANTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 24827, 25 February 1944, Page 3

AUSTRIAN PLANTS

HA 11) BV LIB KItATO US BALL-BEARING FACTORIES LONDON I'eti 23 A strong force of American Liberators to-day attacked Germany's two most important ballbearing factories at Steyr, 95 miles west of \ ienna, says the Naples correspondent, of the Associated Press. The huge Daimler plant, which also produces Messerschmitt fuselages and undercarriages, and a comparatively new factory near by, were bombed. 1 hese factories became the most important ball-bearing producers in Europe after the destruction of the giant. Sellweinfurt, plant last October Flight Over the Alps The Berlin radio savs American heavy bombers, making a thrust: across the Alps, suffered a great reverse. German fighters, in spite of unfavourable weather, shot down at least 38 per cent of the attacking force, which was smaller than that which raided Regensburg yesterday, and of which the Germans claimed 194 as destroyed. In addition to the targets already i announced, the Fifteenth Air Force bonified railway yards at Peterhausen, on the shores of Lake Constance. Italian-based heavy bombers also made diversionary attacks. Fifteen heavy bombers and two fighters of the Fifteenth United States Air Forces are missing. Air Battles On Tuesday Due hundred and thirty-three German fighters were destroyed in air battles yesterday when the Eighth and Fifteenth United States Air Forces attacked aircraft industries and other targets deep inside Germany. Heavy bombers, based in the United Kingdom, destroyed 34, and those based in Italy accounted for 40. United States fighters from Britain shot down 50 In three days' operations aimed at destroying Germany's capacity to maintain aeiial resistance, United States accounted for 3.10 enemy fighters; 153 were shot down by long-range fighters of the Eighth and Ninth Air Forces. 117 by heavy bombers of the Eighth Air Force and 40 were destroyed by the Fifteenth Air Force bombers. Other enemy aircraft were hit. on the grounds of factories and parking areas. Photographs taken by the Eighth United States Air Force during Tuesday's attacks on an aircraft factory at Oschersleben, about 50 miles south-west of Berlin, indicate that direct hits were scored on every major unit of the important Junkers aeroplane plant. (Lied i results were also shown at Bernbcre BOMBED HOSPITAL RADIUM LOST IN RUINS (Reed, 5.35 p.m.i LONDON Feb 23 The Daily Mail says a treasure hunt is progressing in "die ruins ot a bombed London hospital for two container? ot radium worth £3OOO The -catch is being led by one who work.- with a device consisting ot a long tube holding a neon lamp, to which a battery and headphones are connected, called a "clucking hen." and also an electroscope. When the radium is near the "clucking hen" emits a clicking sound and the electroscope flickers. It is explained that the containers diminished the activity of radium to one-sixteenth of normal, so it was not easily detectable under the rubble. PILOTLESS PLANES NAZI SECRET WEAPON CARRIERS OF WINGED BOMBS (Special Correspondent) LONDON. Feb g.'i Recent German reprisal raids on Britain may have been due to the Luftwatle's disappointment at the upsetting by Allied raids on the Pas de Galais area of their plans for using pilot less planes and rockets from the French coast. This view was expressed in London to-day, coupled with the suggestion that the Germans may have j been driven to use conventional | methods of at tack. | The most recent information makes it quite clear that the new weapon on which the Germans have pinned great hopes is a jet or rocket-propelled radiodirected erewless aircraft., which is repotted to be launched into the air from an inclined runway, says the News < 'hronielc's air correspondent commenting on Mi Churchill's reference to the L'ernians' use of new weapons The correspondent adds that an automatic piled safeguards the stability of the machine, and the course is checked and eonl rolled by radio from its base By these means winged bombs are directed at targets, such as cities, whose large areas allow them a fairly wide margin of error in aiming Even d a winged bomb is only l?000lb., thousand-, of tons of explosive could be dropped on a cifv in a short, space of tune, provided lucre was a sufficient number of launching platforms and the means for reloading the aircraft quickly. 'lbis bomb, lie adds, is the explanation for the continuous bombing of the Pas de Calais area. The Germans are preparing to bombard London, perhaps, and certainly England, at long range with such weapons. The British and American air forces are working hard to destroy their installations. MISSION TO MOSCOW APPOINTMENT OF LEADER (Herd. 5.35 p.m.) LONDON. Feb. 23 The War Office has announced the appointment as head of the British Service Mission to Moscow of LieutenantCeneral Mont ague Brocas Burrows. Licutenant-General Burrows was appointed in 1938 military attache at Rome at the time when relations with Italy became strained. He has sine been training tank units destined to take part in the invasion of Europe laeu ten a 111: -Gen er a I Burrows sll cceed s Major-General G. Le Quesrte Martel. '