FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1944
1944 - 0140.PDF
72 FLIGHT JANUARY 20TH, 1944 Behind the Lines Preparing Service and Industrial Foiled News from the Inside of Axis and Enemy' occupied Countries THE construction of a new Luftwaffe airfield at Funen is reported from Denmark. About 70 Danish families have been evicted from the neighbour hood and the airfield is to have a size of 1,000 acres. Jap Nuts LUBRICATING oil for aircraft engines is being produced in Japan from coconuts. The Japanese economic journal Nippon Sangyo Keisei reports that 31 Japanese firms produce this type of lubricant by a secret process based on evaporation and pressing and points out that the product is highly efficient. I.A.R. 80 THE Rumanian single-seater fighter aircraft, the I.A.R. 80, which has been in quantity "production since 1939, is now armed with cannon. The range of the aircraft has now been increased up to 620 miles, and the German military ex perts consider it to be the best type produced by the Rumanian aircraft in dustry. Morale ONLY four things interest theBerliners —eating, ' drinking, sleeping and their longing for reprisals, reports the Berlin correspondent of the Neuchatel Feuille d'Avis. They believe ardently in those famous reprisals and that the new weapons will have a decisive effectjan the evolution of the war. The less opti mistic hope that they will at least suc ceed in diminishing the night raids on Germany. Figures Can't Lie— THE German Navy claims, in a com munique issued by the Official German News' Agency, to have destroyed r,i74 Allied aircraft in 1943. Light naval craft, escort and patrol vessels, minesweepers, submarine craft and A.A. units on merchantmen are credited with this total; the communique^ adds that among aircraft shot down were numerous four-engined bombers heading towards the mainland. The importance of naval A.A. batteries situated near important harbour installations which are subjected to heavy bomber attacks is specially emphasised. The reliability of this—as of many other German figures—may be gauged by a statement included in the report, which explains that the number of air craft shot down without their destruction must be very high because SOS calls are almost daily heard from British and American pilots shot down in the sea. "Thus in January," the report says, "eight such reports have been received, increasing by eight the official number of aircraft shot down because each aircraft carries only one transmitter which can be used by aircraft shot down into the sea." Such additions of each intercepted SOS call obviously add to the score list of the German Navy, which is on the look-out for some badly needed advertising. Russian Lesson IN a summary of Hungarian experience in air operations against Russia, pub lished by the Hungarian Military Re view, it said: "Each Air Force unit which does not take precautious against partisans must resign itself to the fact that one day it will be put out of action or annihilated within a few minutes. The partisans have no difficulty in ascer taining the position of the airfield, which is continuously betrayed by starting and landing aircraft. From Poland pSKILSTUNA KURIREN quotes a -*-' report from Berlin on the establish ment of German armament factories in Poland. It presumes that the district to which reference is being made in the Ger man Press is the Sandomierz triangle, in Southern Poland, where the Polish State laid the foundations of a large heavy industrial centre some years before the war. Hit THE almost complete destruction of the important naval shipyards, the arsenal and Deutsclic Werke at Kiel during the recent American daylight raid is reported by Aftontidningen, quoted by Renter. The Deutsche Werke turned out, among others, the 10,000-ton pocket battleship " Luetzow," the 26,000-ton battle-cruiser " Gneisenau" and the 19,200-ton aircraft carrier "Graf Zep pelin." Jap Effort SINCE the creation of an Armaments Ministry in Japan the whole struc ture of the industry is being completely reorganised and switched over in an in creased degree to war production. The main object of this reorganisation is to increase the output of aircraft. According to information from Tokyo the programme is carried out in close collaboration with the three Japanese monster concerns,, the Mitsui, Mitsubishi and the Sumitomo. The Mitsui concern is to emulate the Sumitomo and Mitsubishi houses in creating a Mitsui-Honsha, in which all commercial and industrial enterprises of the firm are to be represented. It is significant that the Mitsubishi have adopted a programme providing for a transformation of a number of their companies from private undertakings into State organisations. It is not clear whether the Government is to acquire control or whether this merely means the granting of new monopolies. A further far-reaching step in the organisation for war efficiency is the re ported closing down of a number of banking and trading branches of the Mit subishi and the complete concentration on the expansion of the Mitsubishi Jukogyo, the heavy industry company. The Mitsubishi Jukogyo, which is also the largest producer of aircraft in Japan, is to establish a uniform two-shift sys tem in all its industrial plants, f-*APT. SCHWOER, German fighter v-^ ace and holder of nfany decora tions, including th6 coveted "Oakleaves to the Knight's Cross," praised Allied bombing strategy during a talk on the Berlin radio, quoted by Reuter. He said: "Formations of Allied bombers completely upset my fighter plans yes terday. I thought the bombers would keep on a straight course direct into the heart erf Germany and got ready to go in for a frontal attack. But they toiled my plans and altered course to the south-west and we missed them." Precautions REPORTS from Vienna show a grow ing interest of the authorities in preparations for air raids. Local news papers are publishing appeals and regu lations to be observed in the event of air attacks, and the city's A.R.P. instal lations were recently inspected by Baldur von Schirach. J Viennese parks have been dug up fo« trench shelters and water reservoirs, the work being done exclusively by Russian women. The Viennese themselves are asked to spend their evening hours of leisure digging trenches outside their houses. Escape A REMARKABLE story of an Ameri can airman's escape from Germany is told by a Swiss in a Zurich newspaper. The American, a captain of a bomber, had bis aircraft badly smashed by flak and ultimately put out of control over Berlin. He seized a right moment and baled out. The parachute, although damaged by small-calibre flak ammuni tion or splinters, opened, and thirty seconds later the American saw the houses of Berlin and came down in an empty street. He disentangled himself quickly and hid behind a house corner to collect his wits and take his bearings"^ He noticed a sign " Leipziger Strasse" and, having a plan of Berlin on him, he made his decision to walk to Switzer land, via Holland, Belgium and France. This he thought would be safer than the direct cut, with more chances to meet friendly people in occupied countries. Wounded in his arm, suffering from cold, hunger and fatigue^ he marched on at nights, feeding on feitroot and field crops. At times his sufferings became unbearable and he thought of giving himself up. Once, his resistance gone, he resigned himself to capitulation. That night he heard overhead a huge forma - lion of R.A.F. bombers heading towards Germany—he continued to march on. When the Swiss met the American air man, he had covered over 620 miles. He. was then 18 miles outside the Swiss frontier, but he had no doubts that he would make it. Review LIEUTENANT FRITZ WESTMANN, of the Luftwaffe, speaking over the German radio, quoted by Reuter, com pared the present Allied air offensive to a huge steamroller, and its psychological effect with that of the first British tanks when they appeared on the West- Front in 1917.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
