RUHR REGION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 August 1942, Page 4

RUHR REGION

VITAL BOMBING TARGET IMPORTANCE OF INDUSTRY. ; I’.X'i LGm OF COAL PRODUCTION. Although there has been some eastward movement of factories and workshops from the Ruhr, this area of about 350 squai'e miles, with its hard coal and steelworks, is still the backbone of German heavy industry, states a London authority. Hence its importance as a target for bombers. Cologne, Essen and now Dusseldorf, all important manufacturing centres within it, have been devastated by mass air raids, and for many months smaller raids have been made frequently over the area. It is unfortunate for Germany that this vital region for war supplies}, lying so close to the Dutch and Belgian borders, is so conveniently placed for air attack from Britain. The Ruhr-Rhine zone is still responsible for about' 70 per cent of the German output of bituminous coal. Supplies in other areas, mainly lignite, cannot remedy any serious deficiency around Essen and Gelsenkirchen. The supply of hard local coal is not only vital to local heavy industry, to the chemical industry and to those producing synthetic fuel, rubber and plastics; it is vital also to the war industries of Italy. A RICH AREA. The steelworks of the Ruhr are confined to the area bounded roughly by Duisberg, Dortmund and Bochum and they feed the Krupp works of Essen, the electrical and engineering works at Duisberg and the heavy chemical installations centring around Cologne, Frankfurt and Mannheim. Within this broad belt there are also the finishing steel centres of Soligen and Dusseldorf, and Cologne, a transport centre with works for the manufacture of Diesel engines, electrical equipment and chemicals. The purpose of the raids has been to interrupt channels of distribution as well as to destroy the sources of supplies. The transport system of the Ruhr-Rhine zone, states the authority, is delicately poised, with heavy ironore traffic along the river-canal system and with manufactured goods covering similar routes or moving eastwards, often for further processing, along railways through such bottlenecks as Hamm and Schwerte. Fully conscious of railroad deficiencies the German Government has long developed a highway and inland waterway system designed to play an essential part in the economic unification of Nazi Europe. INLAND WATERWAYS. There has been feverish activity in the construction of such waterways as the Rhine-Neckar-Danube, the Rhine-Main-Danube, the Wesser-Danube, the Elbe-Danube, the Oder-Danube and the Vistula Canal. Much of the work is still incomplete, but it is known that last year Berlin was actively planning a link-up of the German and French canal systems. It is interesting to note that before the last war large quantities of the low grade iron ore of Lorraine went to the blast furnaces of the Ruhr, while coke from the Ruhr was used for smelting in Lorraine. Obviously the bombing of inland German ports such as Duisberg, Frankfort and Dusseldorf must disorganise communications and tend to weaken Germany’s western defences. WORKS IN THE EAST. In eastern Germany, Czecho-Slova-kia and Austria, war equipment and material of considerable volume are produced. Within the area bounded by Magdeburg, Wittenberg, Halle and Dassau to the south-west of Berlin there are armament and heavy machinery works, steel .foundries and aeroplane works, and in a zone outside it extending to the Polish frontier and to the Skoda works of Czecho-Slovakia complementary industry serves the war machine. The low grade ore deposits of Braunschweig supply the Goering ironworks. But the Ruhr with its hard coal and its high degree of specialisation in steel is vital to the whole system and blows there can bo described as solar plexus blows.