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Aviation History
1943
1943 - 2433.PDF
fM DAY ATTACK : Buildings andand Amiens-Rouen OCTOBER 7TH, 1943 ATR WAR ON TRANSPORT coal transports to Italy. To replace losses of railway stock sustained on all fronts, locomotive and wagon production is being feverishly pushed forward in France, Ger- many, Austria and Poland. "Austerity" locomotives at present in production are said to have introduced con- siderable economies in materials in short supply, such as copper, and cut down production time by 25 per cent. But the growing crescendo of the bomber offensive against production centres, and the train-busting opera- tions, set a pace which is not easy for the Germans to keep up with. Thus fij^dually a picture Serges of a pattern of combined operations of the R.A.F., of the Soviet Air Force, and of the guerillas all aimed at the destruction of Germany's means of transport. But if these operations undermine directly Germany's war efficacy, the inland waterways, which during the past two years have gained increasingly in importance, merit an equally prominent place in Allied air strategy. The backbone of the water transport system is, of course, the Rhine which, supported by the vast industrial regions it traverses in Germany, France and Holland, carries enor- mous quantities of essential war traffic. Vast quantities of ore, for instance, come up the river to supplement-the Ruhr production, and the Dortmund-Ems canal carried in 1937 a traffic of 20,000,000 tons. Already in peacetime this inland water traffic was of firtt-class importance to Germany's industrial effort since ife-^7 per cent, of its total volume was coal and 15 to 17 Iper cent, different ores. In 1939 Germany owned nearly 6,000 inland vessels,, steam and diesel powered, and about 14,000 unpowered barges with a total capacity of over 6,000,000 tons. On October 23rd, 1942, Hitler ordered the strict co-ordination of the rail, water and road communications under a uniform control. Stringent measures since adopted are designed to relieve the burden of the railways by a switch-over of the heavy freight traffic to inland waterways. As an example one may quote an order issued on Novem- ber 14th, 1942, ruling that all freight from such important production centres as Oldenburg, Bremen, Bremerhaven, Fallersleben, Hammeln, Hanover, Magdeburg, Schonebeck, Tagermiinde and Wesermiinde, consigned to localities on the rivers Rhine, Weser, Elbe and Oder, or on the canals, must go on the inland waterways only. Greater use is also being made of waterways for trans- ports from Germany to Bohemia, and motor ships run on fixed time-tables on the routes Hamburg-Magdeburg- Prague, Berlin-Prague and Saxony-Sudeten. Not only in- dustrial material is being circulated in this way, but passen- ger and foodstuff traffic. Special express boats, operated fry the Bohemia Shipping Co., carry, for instance, veget- ables for German tables in five or six hours from Melnik 1o Prague where they are transhipped and unloaded at St. Francis Embankment near the Ministry of Economics building, a well-deserving target for Allied Air Forces. sidings of the Serqueux junction, between the Paris-Dieppelines, under a hail of bombs from R.A.F. Bostons. To be sure, the attention paid by Bomber Command has certainly had an impeding effect en the water traffic as well. At the end of May, for instance, traffic on barges on the Rhine from the Ruhr to Basle had been completely interrupted. Again, the extensive attacks on such inland ports as Duisburg delayed the downstream traffic to Holland by about five or six days. Similarly, the heavy raids on Cologne, Hamburg and the 83 attacks carried out on Emden must have left their mark on this method of transport. But despite the punishment received the Ger- mans are still in a position.to rely on their waterways. The very nature of the canal and river traffic, which is less rigidly tied to lines of movement and offers more possi- bilities for improvisation, calls perhaps for a development of a method of attack specially designed for this purpose if such attacks are to be really effective. Turning to South-Eastern Europe, Allied control of bases in Italy will facilitate an intensification of air attacks on transport targets in that region. An important source of supply for Germany is the agricultural and mineral pro- duction of Rumania which at present is largely transported on the Danube. The main transport targets along the Danube are to be sought among the thirty-eight ports handling different essential war freight. Of these ports, three should be pin- pointed : Giurgiu, which caters for Germany's petroleum needs; Braila, which has a silo capacity of 25,000 tons and a storage space of 1,500 sq. ft.; and Galatz, with a 1,500 ft. long wheat quay, a storage space of 27,900 sq. ft., and a silo capacity of 25,000 tons which caters for the German stomach. From the toe of Italy transport targets in Rumania lie within 770 miles and those within Yugoslavia at 600 miles. Whether for transport of such raw material as bauxite from Yugoslavia, up west, or movement of troops in the opposite direction, the Balkan railway system is one of Germany's soft spots. Only few, and not too efficient lines exist in this region, and most of the track is still narrow-gauge. These difficulties are further increased by the operations of patriot forces which for the past years have been harassing German transports. Intensification of Allied air operations in this theatre of war may indeed put Germany's com- munications in a most grave position.
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