The Dominion WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 1942. BRITISH BOMBERS OVER GERMANY

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 257, 29 July 1942, Page 4

The Dominion WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 1942. BRITISH BOMBERS OVER GERMANY

As if in answer to the call in Britain for more aggressive action against Germany, the Royal Air Force has delivered another of its hammer-blows —this time against the city and port of Hamburg. Obviously, however, the fact that Sunday night's mass raid took place after a weekend of lively “second front ’ agitation was a puic coincidence. Operations on such a scale as this cannot be prepared overnight, or even in a week. The sending forth of hunch eds of heavy bombers on a single mission, between dusk and dawn, is probably the most complicated undertaking of modern warfare, and must be planned far ahead. Even after the plans are complete, all depends upon the state of the weather. A great aerial stroke, delivered hutriedly as an appeasement to public feeling, would risk disastei. The raid on Hamburg, like its spectacular forerunners early in June, was completely successful. That is to say, the attack by at least 500 heavy machines was pressed home on the target area, and the attacking force suffered proportionately small loss In the circumstances this latter news is of particular importance. Hamburg is one of the most massively-defended cities in the Reich, both from the ground and by fighter aircraft. In the last two months the Germans have attempted to make it impossible for mass raiders to repeat the devastation wrought in Cologne and the Ruhr, ana ensure that heavy toll will be taken of any large raiding force Yet they have failed, and the proof of their failure is found in the announcement that the cost of the Hamburg raid was less than 5 per cent, of the machines engaged. Losses in the Cologne raid (in which more than 1000 bombers participated) were slightly under 4 per cent. Thus the Germans may have raised the toll by something approaching 1 per cent.—a poor outcome from their-point of view. Another significant feature of the attack lay in the weight o bombs dropped. This was substantially higher, proportionate to the number of aircraft engaged, than- in the mass raids ot early June. Not only were many 40001 b. bombs carried, but also a vast concentration of incendiaries, which were showered for 35 minutes at the rate of 5000 a minute. Here is an indication of the tremendous capacity of the newest British “heavies,” which have been developed so rapidly in recent months that machines such as the Vi elhngton previously classed as a heavy bomber, and looked upon as one of the most formidable of British striking _ weapons-now belong to the medium-bomber category. An equally impressive indication of Bntis i •’construction progress was provided yesterday when it was announced in London that the largest bombers built for attacking Germany had three times the carrying capacity of U.S. “Flying Fortresses. It is in this sphere of aerial might that Germany s Nemes s appears to be shaping. There has been no recent sign that the Luftwaffe has available new and better weapons; on the contrary that force is being employed sparingly by comparison with last summer, and even on the eastern front, where German might is concentrated, the odds against the Russians in the air are noticeably less formidable As against this the immense air programme undertaken jointly bv Britain and the United States is proceeding with almost startling enterprise. Since the beginning of the year unexpected calls have been made upon American resources for the Pacific war zone whi Britain has dispatched much of her output to Russia and the Middl East. In spite of such calls upon men and equipment, the main air offensive—that against Germany—has been kept up, week after week. And it has been given additional weight at intervals by devastating blows at selected targets. As time goes on such blows may be expected to become more frequent and to reach still further, the fear they may merge ultimately into a more or less continuous, shattering attack must haunt the minds of the Nazi enemy.