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Aviation History
1944
1944 - 1784.PDF
222 F LI G AUGUST 31 SI, 1944 WAR IN THE AIR craft acted as an air component for the Allied armies up to the limit of their range. Soon, we hope, the M.A.A.F. and the Balkan Air Force will be able to do all the air work that is needed in the Medi terranean theatre, and the carriers will be free to move on to the Pacific. The collapse of Rumania alters the air position in the Mediterranean. No longer .will it be necessary to bomb Ploesti, and the airfields of that country will be available for use by Allied aircraft. In addition, Constanza and other Black Sea ports will be open to the Russian fleet and Russian air craft. The German right flank facing the Russians can be turned, and the Russians should have little difficulty in entering Poland from the south, and also marching into Hungary and Slovakia. Yugoslavia should soon be free, Bulgaria surrounded, and the Germans and Bulgarians in Greece left in a hopeless position. On all sides the ramparts of Hitler's European Fortress have begun to crumble. The divisions strung out along the western and southern coas of France are no longer of anyyrfse The Germans say that Allied troops have landed on the of the Seine estuary, and allege that similar bodie have landed inland from Of the German debacle in Normandy one cannot speak in terms that would be too exultant. It v^as not such a complete opera tion as the victory in Tunisia, when the whole enemy army and its com mander had to surrender. But its results may be perhaps as decisive as any battle in history. Now one can guess why von Run- stedt was dismissed. He, no doubt, saw the possi bilities of Montgomery's trap, and, being without any air assistance that cotin ted, he doubtless wanted to go while the going was good. Hitler always chooses to have his Germans (or allies for pre- lerence, if there are any available) fight to the last man. His intuitions do not seem to warn him of what m ust happen afterwards. So von Kluge was installed to sacrifice the German 7th Army. It was sur rounded by* infantry and armour, and then the guns and the aircraft proceeded to pound it to pieces.. Some portions succeeded in get ting out of the trap before it was too late. They made off in the direction of DELOUSING : A Typhoon standing on an airstrip perimeter in Normandy while a tomb-disposal squad blow up the mines left by the Germans. the Seine, where the aircraft bad broken nearly all .the bridges, and aircraft pursued them ail the way as they retreated. Some remnants did tting across the Seine at by ingenious bridges of boats, but they .could be but a sorry and disheartened remnant of a once powerful and insolent army. i^ve/y late stage some Luftwaffe began to show German/ffftkalt appeared in Ifgth tofcoArltJwe lpfr**ch BATTLE OF FRANCE : A Mustang of No. 2 T.A.F. flyinj over a convoy of tanks moving up through the village of Conde-su--Noireau. of the ragged remnants of the 7th Army to the bridgeless Seine. R.A.F. reconnaissance aircraft have reported that the Germans are using as ferry boats over the Seine some of the barges which they prepared in 1940 for the invasion of England. So some use has been found for them at last! While the great land battles in the East and the West have naturally attracted most attention, strategic bombing of Germany's resources has been continued. Bremen • was found to require some further attention not long ago, and it received it in full measure. There have also been a series of attacks on oil refineries in - different parts of Europe, including Silesia. Although Rumania has turned against the Ger mans, that does not mean that Ploesti falls ima ^'Jl* diately into Allied hands; but certainly the Germans will not get much more oil out of that district. There is every reason just now for cutting down all possible supplies of oil to the enemy. The great stores which the Germans had amassed at the submarine bases have been bombed, as well as the bases for the U-boats; and outside the harbours the Royal Navy has dealt with ships which tried to escape. Minelaying by the R.A.F. has had effects of a different sort on German resources. During the last three months more mines have been dropped by Bomber Command than in any pre vious quarter during trie war. In that period machines flew nearly 2,000,000 miles to lay mines. They helped to keep
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