AIR-LIFT RESUMED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27093, 30 May 1949, Page 5

AIR-LIFT RESUMED

BERLIN’S LIFE-LINE

RUSSIANS IMPOSE RAILWAY BLOCKADE NZPA—Copyright

Rec. 11 p.m. LONDON, May 29. The Allied air-lift, since the Russians imposed the railway blockade, has once again become Berlin’s lifeline, says the British United Press correspondent. “ -Life would be as bad as it was during the darkest days of the Russian blockade were it not for the planes,” said the British commander in Berlin, Major-general Bourke.

A British spoKesman said traffic on the railways link between the British zone and Berlin was completely paralysed, and no trains had left the zone for Berlin since yesterday morning because, of the refusal of the Russian authorities to pass goods traffic from the West at Helmstedt. Goods and passenger road traffic is ( still normal, and the Soviet authorities are passing lorries with supplies for Berlin without difficulty. Overhead air-lift planes are roaring into the city every two minutes. Four Russian army officers who brought 60 railwaymen from the Russian sector of Berlin to key railway yards at Neukoelin to repair the lines, had their train stolen-from them by strikers to-day. The 60 railwaymen deserted. About 200 strikers broke through the police lines and surrounded the train. • They replaced the torn-up rails and drove the train to their part of the station. Amid hoots from the strikers, three of the Russian officers and three of their German assistants began to hike Daek down the lines towards the Russian sector. More than 2000 people in nearby flats and on roof tops cheered the “theft.”

Newspaper correspondents in Berlin say the Russian-controlled railway administration, in an attempt to settle the seven-day railway strike, announced last night that from Jui e 1 tickets for the city railway would be sold exclusively for West marics in the Western sectors,, and that in consequence the administration was prepared from that date to pay 60 per cent, of the wages of West sector railwaymen in West marks. The strikers, who demand all their wages in West marks, will discuss t'fle offer today, but say it will be rejected

British and American air-lift aircraft from Berlin followed the usual course to-day along the Buckeburg air corridor despite a Soviet warning that ground to air firing practice there would make flying dangerous, says Reuter’s Berlin correspondent. The Russians have warned that their army summer manoeuvres will make tne Buckeburg air corridor “ a danger area,” and they would not accept responsibility for any planes flying through it. A RAF official spokesman said air-lift pilots were keeping a close watch for any sign that the manoeuvres have started, no Soviet reply has . been received to Allied protests against the manoeuvres. The British United Press Berlin correspondent says 40.000 Russian troops are reported to have been moved into the heavily-wooded sepzenger-Heide area for the manoeuvres.