SMASHING BLOWS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 May 1943, Page 4

SMASHING BLOWS

STRUCK AT AXIS AIR POWER IN MEDITERRANEAN DESTRUCTION OF 300 PLANES AGAINST ALLIED LOSS OF 16. FATE OF ITALY AT STAKE. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 10.55 a.m.) LONDON, May 23. The Allied air forces are smashing Axis air power in the Central Mediterranean, destroying nearly twenty planes for each one lost. A great battle is developing for absolute control of the skies over Sicily, Sardinia and Italy’s toe. Allied airmen have now increased the total of enemy machines destroyed in the past four days to 300 for a loss of only 16. Allied bombers are maintaining the weight of their round the clock assault against enemy airfields, while Allied fighters are going far afield in order to entice enemy planes into the air and thus increase the total destroyed. Mr Arthur Henderson, Financial Secretary to the War Office, in a speech in Surrey, described the Mediterranean air battle as the next round in the United Nations’ great forward movement and added: —

“A terrific struggle is going on for air supremacy in the Mediterranean. Hitler and Mussolini both know that the fate of Italy, as well as Italy’s continued participation in the war, are at stake. They are doing everything possible to stave off the defeat which is inevitable.”

Reuter’s Algiers correspondent says R.A.F. Marauders shot down the day’s showpiece yesterday, when they destroyed a Messerschmitt 323 transport plane north of Sicily and damaged a second transport plane. R.A.F. crews saw the survivors jumping into the sea from the destroyed plane. A later message states that the Axis losses in the Mediterranean for the 96 hcurs up to last night were 304 planes, fcr the loss of 17 Allied planes. This is a ratio cf 18 to one in favour of the. Allies.