DAY AND NIGHT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 February 1943, Page 3

DAY AND NIGHT

ALLIED BOMBING PLANS IN EUROPE PRESENT POLICY DEFENDED. MAXIMUM DESTRUCTIVE EFFORT AGAINST ENEMY. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, February 17. Major-General Ira C. Eaker, Commander of the United States Air Forces in Britain, made a statement today outlining the case for American day bombing. He declared that it would be the greatest tragedy if either the American or the British bombing effort should be diverted from the present pattern. “If the Royal Air Force bombed habitually in the daytime its losses would be too high, and if the United States air forces bombed at night the losses would be higher and efficiency would be greatly reduced,” he said. “The planes have been built and the crews have been trained for the different jobs.” This, he added, did not mean that the R.A.F. could not occasionally bomb by day or the Americans at night, but neither force would be in its best element or do its best work in those conditions. The present arrangement produced the maximum destructive effort against the enemy. The enemy defences were alert throughout the 24-hour period, and that alone kept several hundred thousand German workmen from the factories and war industries. A further reason for the continuance of the policy was that the American day bombers, operating over Germany in daylight, forced the enemy to maintain a large force of day fighters which otherwise would be free to operate on the Russian front, the African front or elsewhere. In short, the present scheme —bombing round the clock—kept the enemy’s fighters and anti-aircraft defences extended to the limit.