NO PAUSE
AIR ASSAULT HEAVY RAID ON STETTIN KIEL ATTACKED AGAIN (Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, Jan. «. The great air offensive against Germany and enemy - occupied territory was carried a stage further yesterday, when British and American bombers, as well as hundreds of Allied fighters, swept over France and Germany In round - the - clock attacks. R.A.F# heavy bombers attacked the Baltic port of Stettin last night, while Mosquitoes raided Berlin, and American planes bombed Kiel again, as well as targets at Bordeaux and Tours. The R.A.F. switched to an old target when it attacked the Pomeranian, capital of Stettin. The raid was heavy and concentrated. Stettin has important shipbuilding industries, chemical, machinery, and cement works, and oil refineries. Besides objectives in Berlin, the Mosquitoes also raided targets in Western Germany and Northern France. Fifteen bombers are missing. Huge forces of bombers and fighters swept out from Britain in daylight, striking a four-pronged blow reaching across Europe from the west coast of France to Germany. Targets nearly 800 miles apart were bombed. The cross-Channel offensive started at dawn and ended at dusk. Massed Allied medium, bombers and tighten attacked the northern coast of France for the sixth consecutive day. While R.A.F. fighter-bombers without loss attacked military objectives in France, American bombers in great strength blasted Kiel, Germany’s No. 1 U-boat construction centre, for the second successive day. when the great shipyards were still belching smoke from the previous attack. The targets bombed in Western Germany to-day are still not named. In France bombers attacked the great airfield at Tours, from which German long-range planes take off to harry our Atlantic convoys, and also Bordeaux, where the Germans use. another airfield for shipping reconnaissance planes. The American planes shot down no fewer than 95 German fighters, 62 being accounted for by the bombers and 33 by escorting fighters. Twenty-five American bombers and 12 fighters were lost. Swarms of rocket-firing Messerschmitts came up to meet the Fortresses over Keil and a smoke screen was thrown out to obscure the target. In spite of this, however, the bombing was accurate and many large fires ana explosions were seen. The Luftwaffe used a new weapon against the Fortresses and Liberators bombing Kiel, namely, an aerial bomb on a wire behind the planes. One Fortress pilot said it looked like a 100pounder and exploded harmlessly 50 yards from his ship. He was unable to see how it was exploded. Another pilot said a plane with a trailing bomb sped through his formation. The bomb exploded with a big white flash just behmd his Fortress, rocking it violently but causing no damage.
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Bibliographic details
Otago Daily Times, Issue 25427, 7 January 1944, Page 3
Word Count
434NO PAUSE Otago Daily Times, Issue 25427, 7 January 1944, Page 3
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