Saga of Daylight Air Warfare

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 60, 14 March 1944, Page 5

Saga of Daylight Air Warfare

TEMPO OF BOMBING NAZI WAR PLANTS QUIUKENED (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, March 12. Brigadier-General George MacDonald stated in a broadcast that in February the United States strategic air forces —the Eighth Air Force in England and the Fifteenth in Italy—have dropped 24,000 tons of bombs on German aircraft factories and other precision targets. At the same time, big daylight bombers and escorting fighters destroyed 905 enemy planes in the air, while losing 446 themselves. Brigadier-General MacDonald added: "The United States strategic air forces in Europe, together with the R.A.F., represent the greatest striking air lorce ever assembled. This force is working to a schedule laid out by the combined Allied Air Command. That schedule is a carefully-devised plan for destroying the Nazi war installations in order of priority. La3t month witnessed a quickening of the tempo of that plan, culminating in the battle of Regens-

burg on February 25, which involved the greatest number of aircraft ever put in the air against Germany. “The February record was a story of bombing mounting towards the climax of the week just past. That week made history in the saga of daylight air warfare when United States air armadas penetrated the nerve-centre of Germany four times in six days. Last week the Erkner ball-bearing plant came on our schedule. This factory was turning out half of the replacements of the Luftwaffe and other vital military targets located in or near Berlin. Fortresses and Liberators, with fighter cover all the way, bombed those targets."'