MOUNTING TEMPO

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25240, 1 June 1943, Page 3

MOUNTING TEMPO

WIDESPREAD OFFENSIVE LONDON, May 30. ' Germany, which is very much on the defensive :aS'.the tempo bf the great air offensive mounts, lost at least 83 planes last week in a vain endeavour to halt the Allies’ assault. The raids cost the R.A.F. 135 planes over Europe, but this was a mere fraction of the great forces employed. / " , ~ , . The four biggest night raids last week—Dortmund, Dusseldorf,' Essen, and Wupperthal—involved the loss of 121 valuable bombers and their crews, but this loss,, tragic as it is, must be considered a comparatively small price to pay for the destruction wrought in the heart of the enemy’s war production area. Hundreds of British, dominion, and Allied air crews who are helping to reduce to rubble Germany s mightiest war factories have told tales of the terrible destruction they have seen in the Ruhr centres and 'reconnaissance after every raid has verified their'claims. Striking at Italian Bases Meanwhile the Allied air forces fronU North Africa are continuing to blast the Italian war centres and also to beat the German-Italian air cover from the skies 'over the Mediterranean. The Americans, striking new and massive hammer blows at Sardinia and Pantellaria yesterday, did not encounter fighter opposition, says Reuters Algiers correspondent. Enemy fighter opposition appears to have broken dqwn completely for the second time since the blitz began against the islands in the Mediterranean. Axis fighters early last week reappeared, as many as 50 at a time, but have now vanished again. < The Times, in a leading article on the general air offensive, says it is no accident at a time when the Allied air attack against the war industries of Germany and against the exposed bases in Italy is growing in scope and weight that there should be loud laments from Berlin and Rome about the iniquity and inhumanity of the bombing. What moves the enemy to self-righteousness is not the criminality of air warfare, but his present inability to exploit it as he did when he was strong and his adversaries weak. The Allies’ major attacks have already disrupted his war effort. - Steel Works Attacked It is officially 'stated’ that Fighter Command Typhoon bombers attacked Mondeville Steel Works, near Caen, North-west France, this afternoon, scoring direct hits on the works and adjoining railway lines. All the Typhoons returned. A supporting Spitfire , wing encountered . about 12 FockeWulfs some 24.000 feet above Le Havre, and in a dogfight shot down four of the enemy. One Spitfire is missing. A coastal ship was left enveloped in steam and' with its stern ablaze after an attack by other Typhoons on a convoy of several small ships approaching N Flushing earlier to-day. When he landed at his base after shooting down a Focke-Wulf over Guernsey following an 80-mile chase this afternoon, a Typhoon pilot found that h'e. had flown back with a piece of enemy aircraft cowling lodged in his radiator, says the Air Ministry. The Focke-Wulf was one of four destroyed in a raid to-day by 15 Focke-Wulfs on a south-west coast town. The other three raiders were destroyed by antiaircraft fire. Paris radio stated that 170 persons were killed and 203 seriously injured at Rennes by the Flying Fortress raid on Sunday.. The dead will be buried in a mass grave. All primary schools are being closed as a precaution.