R.A.F. OFFENSIVE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20919, 20 October 1942, Page 3

R.A.F. OFFENSIVE

SMASH TRANSPORT LESSON OF LE CREUSOT (By Telegraph —Press Assri. —Copyright.) (British Official Wireless.) (11 a .in.) RUGBY. Oct. 19. The destruction of the Schneider works at Le Creusot is greeted in the British press as a very remarkable operation which promises yet greater developments. Every detail, says the Daily Telegraph, encourages a hope that, contrary to the theory so far generally accepted as a result of experience in the. Battle of Britain, it may be possible to devise a successful technique for heavy daylight attacks on targets in Germany, and thus, weather permitting, keep up a continuous bombing of the enemy day and night. The Daily Telegraph also notes the contrast in the losses with the raid on Augsburg in May, while the Daily Express says: ‘‘lts eight-ton bomb load made the Lancaster the backbone of the big night raids and its speed and fire-power have made it as terrible a menace in the daylight as in the dark.” The News-Chronicle points out that the raids on Lille and Le Creusot were partly, inspired by the same tactical idea —the dislocation of Germany’s internal communications. “The Lille works and the Schneider ’ factories both manufacture locomotives, though the Schneider works also produce armaments on a large scale,” it adds. “There is a very new concern which turns out locomotives in big numbers. The damage done in these two raids will have a serious effect throughout the Reich. That is why the Allies are putting all they know into smashing communications. “The bombing of engineering works and railway centres and marshalling yards and the shooting up of locomotives in northern France are all aspects of a single co-ordinated plan. It is already yielding good dividends. When Germany is called on to fight on two or more fronts its full value will for the first time be clearly revealed.”