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Aviation History
1944
1944 - 0324.PDF
i66 FLIGHT WAR IN THE AIR only an inferior part in them. Most of the movements have been made by road, which uses up valuable fuel and helps to wear out transport vehicles. But the Germans have not yet been kept from achieving a purpose by shortage of fuel—except when Rom mel's tankers were sunk during the victorious advance of the Eighth Army from Alamein. In Italy their supplies come by land and not by sea, which makes a big difference. Clouds have been down to 3,000 feet, enveloping the tops of the Apennines, and they have naturally restricted the activities of the Allied W|* BANG — ON THE TARGET : Two photographs showing some accurate bombing by the U.S.A.A.F. during an attack on a Luftwaffe training base near Chateauroux. heavy bombers. The Germans took full advantage of that. Though the American force of heavy bombers in the Mediterranean is under the supreme operational command of Gen. Carl Spaatz, who also com mands the heavies of the 8th Air Force in Britain, while these opera tions have been going on in Italy the heavies there have joined with the Tactical Air Force in hitting at targets which are concerned with the cam paign in Italy. There has been no disposition to take up the attitude '' we are strategical bombers and have nothing to do with tactical work,." which has sometimes hampered Allied results elsewhere. The sound policy has been followed of using all avail able air strength to help while a land battle is raging. Bombing an airfield in France from which the enemy might have sent machines against the Fifth or Eighth Armies is tactical work, even though it is carried out by a force which has been given the title of " Strategical." Flight has often preached that it would be folly to lose the battle of to-day through trying to win the battle of to-morrow. In other words, when there is tactical bombing to be done, it must take precedence of strategic bombing, and it is very gratifying to observe that our leaders have now taken that principle to heart. The Daylight Offensive TN the meantime the daylight ofien- •*• sive over Northern France has been going merrily on, and the term "military objectives" recurs almost daily in the communiques. These have so far not been specified. The astonishing thing is that the Germans are making such feeble efforts to defend targets which obviously must be of importance. The fighting escorts which cross over with the Mos quitoes and Typhoon bombers are only too anxious to have a scrap with the Hun, but they do not often meet with him, and when they do he shows no great anxiety to engage in a dog fight. No doubt the German fighter pilots are obeying orders in thus avoiding combat, for when a serious raid by heavy bombers crosses the coast, they attack it with quite reck less bravery and no little skill. This cannot be entirely attributed to the confidence which the Germans feel that their interceptor fighters are better than the escort fighters which accompany the American daylight raids. It takes a brave man to face the concentrated fire of the many half- inch machine guns in the Fortresses and Liberators, and the German fighters constantly face it, with heavy- loss to themselves. A notable case of such an air battle occurred last Thursday, February 10th, BREECHES BOY: An armourer feeding belts of .303m. ammunition to the containers in the nose of a De Havilland Mosquito. when U.S. Fortresses made another daylight attack on the aircraft works in Brunswick—the third raid on that city in a month. The bombers were escorted by Mustangs, Thunderbolts and Lightnings, and for two hours the Americans were fiercely attacked by between 200 and 300 German fighters. From the preliminary reports it appears that the Americans have now mastered the art of using their fighters to keep the enemy away from the bombers, at least to some extent. These early reports said that the escort fighters had shot down 55 enemy machines, while the bombers oqj^, claimed 29 victims. In earlier raids it was almost the invariable rule that the Fortresses claimed more victims than the escort fighters did. The quality of the American fighters is shown by the fact that only eight of them failed to return from the raid. Nevertheless, it was impossible for them to keep the German defenders completely at arm's length from the bombers, and 29 of the Fortresses were missing at the end of the day. Eighth Armies "C*IGHT, as a number for an Army, is -*-' one of ill omen for the Germans. The British Eighth Army drove them out of Libya, and now their own Eighth Army is surrounded by the Russians in the bend of the Dnieper, to the north of Shpola. Perhaps by tlv time these words are printed the erv1 will have come. At the moment '#' writing the Russians have been closing in round the doomed ring, and have occupied all the important airfields in
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