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Aviation History
1945
1945 - 0325.PDF
FEBRUARY 15TH, 1945 FLIGHT 169 WAR IN THE AIR to take part in the battle, but our fighters did sentry-go over the airfields round Rheine, Miinster, and Osna- briick, so not many enemy aircraft were able to take-off. Some few did manage to do so, and ten were accounted for by our fighters. It is curious to read that five of these victims were dive bombers, though of what type has not been reported. Meantime the U.S. 3rd Army made ten new crossings of the Our and Sure rivers into Germany, and that their advance was dashing is shown by the fact that some of their units had to be supplied by air. The state of the weather over Europe was graphically brought home to one by the admission that on Thursday last week a British Tecon- . naissance aircraft was able to fly over ^•.Berlin. Such a flight had not been possible for some four months before.. That did not mean that bombers had not been able to find the Reich capital; but naturally everyone wanted to know what the results of their work had been, and photography demands better weather than bombing does. In the centre of the city an area of one and a half square miles was devastated by the attack of U.S. heavy bombers on February 3rd. Many important state buildings were claimed as hit, including the main post and telegraph office, the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Transport, the Reich Chancellery, the Air Ministry, the Gestapo H.Q., the Treasury, the State Railway Direc-. torate, and the office housing the secret archives, besides some railway stations. Of these, one imagines that Germany will not be seriously embarrassed by damage to the Foreign Office; but most of the other buildings mentioned as damaged must be very important dt the present critical time The Air Ministry, which now has not got a. INNER CIRCLE : A 2nd T.A.F. Spitfire taxying on an airfield in Holland,frame is a roll of Somerfeld landing-strip wire. The very imposing Luftwaffe to control, was said to have a quite remarkable thickness of concrete over its roof. Perhaps it might have withstood the heaviest bombs which Fortresses and Liberators could convey to Berlin; but the heaviest Lancaster bombs have shown a great power of piercing such defences. The problem which Berlin has to tackle now is the unprecedented influx of refugees from East Prussia. The numbers are said to have run into several millions. Housing them must alone, be a great problem ; and the repeated attacks _by Mo-quitoes with 4,000 ib.,JaefiTrjs (thoughvnot intended to harfn civilian refugees)inujj*^have ggravatecf the hopemg prob- l Mf \ IN COLD STORAGE A dump of streamlined general-purpose bombs under snowin Holland. man propaganda is now claiming that the Germans treated the French refugees in 1940 with every considera- tion and kindness, and that no Ger- man aircraft ever bombed or machine- gunned them. There are plenty of British airmen and soldiers who know better than that; for they saw the cruel work, and were filled with righteous rage and indignation. The Russian communiques continue to report a modest total of 26 to 30 enemy aircraft shot down every day on the whole enormous Russian front. The Russians hold air superiority in general, and at places it is overwhelm- ing, and consequently we should have expected to hear of greater air buttles and heavier German losses. Yet we kupw that the best Luftwaffe pilots willSstiU fight s«ith determination. Irf tl%:,-stru||gli on the West Front ttKTTacfical Air Forces have had only fleeting opportunities ; but they have seized every one. It appears now that the trend of German troop move- ments is westward rather than cast- ward, as they appeared to be some time ago. In the brief intervals of good or moderate flying weather the Allied aircraft have struck at very many ttains and damaged locomotives and wagons. If one puts oneself in the position of the German High Com- mand one can imagine the difficulties of resisting on two fronts and deciding which is the more important at any one moment. Perhaps the trains which Allied airmen attacked carried equip- ment rather than reinforcements ; but certainly the British and Americans have taken prisoners who have re- cently been on the Russian front, and they have been horrified (and often incredulous) when told of the true position there.
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