AIR OFFENSIVE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25309, 20 August 1943, Page 5

AIR OFFENSIVE

GROWING WEIGHT OF ATTACK huge number of sorties RUGBY, Aug. 18. Between 2500 and 3000 sorties were flown by Allied aircraft during the attacks on Europe from Britain and North Africa yesterday and last night. Giving these figures in London today, the commentator emphasised the severity of the attacks on the different targets by the aircraft of the different commands. There were so many different targets in the news that the pattern and purpose of the series of often-, sive" operations were easy to trace, f or example, when St. Pol, Calais, Poix, Lille, Vendeville, Woensdrecht, Bryassud, Schweinfurt, Regensburg, Berlin. Istres, Salon, and Letuve, as well as many railway and other subsidiary targets in France, the Low Countries, and North-west Germany were visited it indicated the far-flung nature of an offensive aiming principally at the destruction of enemy aircraft and their components and auxiliary equipment, both completed and in various stages of production. , ■ . Many sweeps like this helped to perplex and confuse the enemy and divert his attention from attacks on major targets, at the same time damaging lesser targets. The commentator said the attack on Regensburg, carried out against very stubborn opposition, was a particularly fine example of U.S.A.A.F. daylight precision bombing technique. . More striking figures concerning the air war were also given in London today. Bomber Command in July flew nearly twice the number of sorties and dropped 10,000 tons more bombs for the loss of only 11 more planes than in July, 1942. Eighty tons of bombs were dropped for every plane lost in July, compared with 40 tons in July, 1942. and the personnel lost per unit of bombs dropped was halved in 1943. Seventy-five thousand tons of bombs were dropped on Germany by the Bomber Command in the first seven and a-half months of this year. This was over twice the tonnage dropped in the whole of 1942, and well over half the total tonnage so far dropped on Germany since the outbreak of war. Allied fighter sorties from Britain last month totalled over 11,000. Last month the R.A.F. Fighter Command alone dropped over double the bomb tonnage delivered in Britain by all the German planes over the same period. Emphasising the great change in the scale of Bomber Command attacks in the last 12 months, the commentator said that in 1942, except for a few special 1000-bomber raids, there were only 17 raids in which over 500 to 1000 tons were dropped, 16 of 1000 to 1500 tons, one of 1500 to 2000 tons, and eight of over 2000 tons.

Yet, in spite of the impressive operations now carried out, we were hardly at the beginning of the technique of knocking out an objective by airpower. The quality of the bombs had improved, and the big bomb which yielded ■ good results had not yet reached finality.