BERLIN AIRLIFT HAS HAD TO RESUME

Wanganui Chronicle, 30 May 1949, Page 5

BERLIN AIRLIFT HAS HAD TO RESUME

RUSSIAN RAIL BLOCKADE LONDON, May 29 (Rec. 7.45 p.m.) —The Allied airlift since the Russians imposed a 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 planes,” said the British commander in Berlin, Major-General Bourke. British and American airlift aircraft from Berlin followed the usual course today 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 the Buckeburg air corridor a "danger area” and they would not accept responsibility for any planes flying through it. An R.A.F. official spokesman said airlift pilots were keeping close watch for any sign that the manoeuvres have started. The 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 Lepzenger-Heide 'area for manoeuvres.

LONDON, May 28 (Rec. 6 p.m.)— Newspaper correspondents in Berlin says the Russian-controlled railway administration, in an attempt to settle the seven day railway strike, announced last night that from June 6 tickets for the city railway would be sold exclusively for West marks in the Western sectors and that in consequence the adm'nistrati.tn was prepared from that date to pay 60 per cent, of the wages of West sector railwaymen in West marks. Strikers, who demand all their wages in West marks, will discuss the offer today, but say it will be rejected.