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Aviation History
1945
1945 - 0636.PDF
356 WAR IN THE AIR of any sort might be likely to come. The landing of the airborne troops went without a hitch. It was covered by unusual swarms of fighters, and no Luftwaffe machine ventured to inter- fere with it. The flak, however, was thick and accurate in places—in fact, German flak gunners have had so much practice that they have become' very-good. They know that air de- fence rests upon them and on nothing else, and they rise to the emergency. Nevertheless, the losses in machines of the airborne contingent were less than 3 per cent. The Air / Sea rescue boats swarmed across the Channel; but, according to early reports, only two gliders were known to have ditched. There were eight men in each, and all of them were rescued. The organisation which brought this unprecedented number of gliders and, tugs together and arranged that their troops should arrive just at the right moment directly in front of the ad- vancing infantry, and should clear paths for them, was magnificent. It must have been a most complex piece nf work. Debacle ? TN 1914, when Gen. von Knack's -*• Army on the right of the invading force was beaten outside Paris, the whole of the German forces fell back from the Marne to the Aisne. It looks as if Montgomery's crossing of the Rhine round Wesel has had a similar effect. The sensitive German right flank has been turned, and therefore Kesselring must have ordered a gen- eral retreat. The American 1st, 3rd, . and 7th Armies are hustling the enemy on. What the position will be by thc- BROAD SHOULDERS FOR A HEAVY BURDEN : Air Marshal Sir Arthur"Coningham was responsible for co-ordinating the entire air operations in the crossings of the Rhine. He is seen here in a zero-hour conference with, on his right,Group Capt. Sutcliffe, Chief Met. Officer, and on his left, Gen. Brereton, Commanding General of the First Allied Airborne Army, and Air Vice-Marshal Groom, Senior AirStaff Officer, Second T.A.F. time these words are published can- not be foretold; but certainly the Rhine is no longer a barrier. Germany lies open before the pursuing'Allies, and the only question which is at all disturbing at the moment of writing is whether supplies of petrol, ammuni- tion and food can keep up with the advance. In places our reconnaissance airmen have reported that the German retreat has begun to resemble a rout. A hurried retreat can never have been a pleasant experience for an army, even DELIVERING A TEN-TONNER : One of the Lancasterbombs on the Arftergen railway btl when the pursuers were armed only with lance and sabre, and when horses could only cover so many miles a day. Now, when the pursuing cavalry are in tanks and aircraft, it must be far more terrible. Kesselring had some experi- ence of that sort of thing when he and Rommel were falling back hurriedly from Alamein. But at that time the Germans still had reasonable supplies of petrol, and were falling back on their stores. Now there is very little petrol left in all Germany ; while the R.A.F. ana some of the American air contingents learnt in Africa the art of keeping up with a rapidly advancing army. Moreover, the Allies now have far greater resources than ever before in the way of air transport. On the East Front, the Russiar^gf" have taken the naval base of Gdynia and forced their way into Danzig. The Russians sent up '' huge air fleets '' 1 to quote the words of a correspondent of The Times) which were strongly opposed by the Luftwaffe without much success. The German fleet tried to intervene; but the Red bombers flew out and attacked it. The carrier- borne squadrons of the Russian Baltic Fleet have frequently shown them- selves to be full of energy and initia- tive, though their numbers cannot be large. On the southern front, too, the Russiail aircraft gave splendid support to tile ground troops in very fine enemy is evidently trying hard tc/bring reinforcements over from Nor- ay; butNJihe Halifaxes of Coastal Command hctye been keeolng a sharp look-out and hWe attacked many coii- voysCn the Skagerrak.
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