MANY AIR COMBATS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 82, Issue 25172, 9 April 1945, Page 5

MANY AIR COMBATS

87 NAZI PLANES DOWN ATTACK BY 1300 BOMBERS (Reed. 9.15 p.m.) LONDON, April 8 Lt is officially stated that fighters escorting 1300 American bombers attacking jet plane aerodromes in Germany yesterday shot down 63 planes. The bombers destroyed at least another 24. Most of the bombing was done visually and the results were reported as generally good. Twenty-two bombers and three fighters are missing from the great force of 2200 aircraft. Lancasters, escorted by Spitfires, last evening bombed objectives at Tjnunden, Holland. British bombers last night went to Central Germany to attack an oil refinery south-east of Leipzig. Mosquitoes based on the Continent attacked Berlin. "We can now fly anywhere over Germany at anv time in any weather, said General H. H. Arnold, commanding the United States Air Forces, at a press conference. He said March was the biggest air month of the war, with a daily average of over 5000 planes in the air. "We had jet planes before the Germans, but did not use them because they are a defensive and not an offensive weapon." General Carl Spaatz, commanding the Strategic Bombing Fordes, who was present, interposed: "If we had put our production into jet planes instead of fighters we would not have won the air war by now."