FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1944
1944 - 0593.PDF
MARCH 23Rr>, 1944 F LI G H m 1: WAR IN THE AIR ENEMY WITHIN THE CAMP : Reconditioning a Henschel 129 fighter bomber at an R.A.F. station. We have most of the German types in flying condition. BRITISH & U.S. AIR LOSSES TO MAR. 18th Ma-. 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Over G.B. A'cft. OOOOOO O 0 Continent B'brf. F'trs. 2 0 3 1 0 0 43 jb 22 14 0 8 46 10 116 39 Middle East A'eft. o — oooo o 1 Italy A'cft. 0 6 1 6 4 II 12 40 Totals : West, 10,537 ; Middle East, about 2,387 . N.W. Africa and Italy, 1,826. enemy. One American fighter pilot escaped when his machine was shot down, and several of the bombers came down on Swiss territory. In the night between these two day raids the K.A.F. set up a new record. No less than 1,000 heavy bombers were sent over Germany, with Stutt gart as the principal target. Over 3,000-toils of bombs were dropped in the course of the night. Less than four per cent, of our bombers were lost. This raid naturally invites compari son with the raid by 1,000 machines on Cologne, in 1942, but then many of ENEMY AIR LOSSES TO MAR. 18th Mar. 12 . 13 „ 14 „ 15 „ 16 „ 17 ',. 18 1 Over G.B. 0 0 12 0 0 0 0 12 — Con tinent 0 0 2 6 6 0 0 14 — Middle East 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 — Italy I 3 4 I 3 9 3© 77 Totals : West, 8,079 ; Middle East, over 5,845 N.W. Africa and Italy, 4,781. TANK BUSTER : A Junkers 88 fitted with a high-velocity cannon in a streamlined casing below the fuselage. The cannon appears to be of 37mm. or 40mm. calibre. the machines were Wellingtons and Whitleys, two-engined bombers now ranked as in the medium class. More over, some hundreds of them wen training aircraft drawn with their crews from Operational Training Units, Heavy Conversion Units, and from Army Co-operation Command. Their crews were pupils who had not been out on operations before. The raid last week was made entirely by lour-t ngined heavies with experienced crews. Great interest has been aroused by the news that a body of air-borne troops has been landed over ioo milt s behind the Japanese lines in Burma. The whole Burma front is lively, and both sides seem to be in aggressive mood. As yet there is little experience available to any staff about the proper employment of air-borne troops, and this must be acquired by the old method of trial and error. But cei tainly the first desideratum is sur prise, and this has been achieved in Burma according to the reports. The object seems to be to cut the com munications of the Japanese 18th Division. It was an enterprise full of initiative and daring and the staff work was most thorough.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
