WITHOUT A HALT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 May 1943, Page 3

WITHOUT A HALT

ALLIED BOMBING OF ITALY & ISLANDS GREAT ATTACK ON LEGHORN BY FLYING FORTRESSES. OIL REFINERY & OTHER TARGETS BLASTED. LONDON. May 30. In the Mediterranean, Allied medium bombers and fighter-bombers have kept up attacks on enemy bases in Sardinia and Pantelleria. They were over these islands several times yesterday, bombing docks and railway installations.

One hundred unescorted Flying Fortresses, without .loss, raided Leghorn, which contains one of Italy’s largest end most important oil refineries, the Algiers correspondent of the National Broadcasting Corporation reported in an earlier message. The Fortresses turned the refinery into an inferno of flames and smoke.

Two large explosions occurred, after which the photographs taken showed six large fires with smoke 1000 feet high The smoke became so thick that further observation of the refinery area became impossible. Direct hits were scored on two ships in the harbour, while the railway yards and oil storage tanks were covered with bomb bursts. A member of the crew of one of the Fortresses said that the place was “really messed up.” An Italian communique states that raiders bombed Leghorn and Foggia, and also the area of Lucera, and localities in Sicily and Sardinia. They considerably damaged public buildings and houses. Fifty-nine were killed and 349 injured in Leghorn. Six were killed and nine injured in Lucera. In attacking Leghorn, the African air forces struck farther north than ever before, says the British United Press. Leghorn is only 90 miles south of Genoa, the most southerly Italian city attacked by the Bomber Command from Britain. There is no major objective in the 90-mile gap, so the Allied air net has spread practically ever the whole of Italy, except for ports like Trieste and Fiume. The attack meant a trip of nearly 1200 miles for the Fortresses, the longest so far made in this area. Leghorn is a vital point in the Italian railway communications down the west coast, in addition to being one of the leading seaports of northern Italy. It is the only regular port for Corsica. The Rome radio says that neutral correspondents in Berlin are of the opinion that an atrocious and just punishment for the British air attacks is imminent. Diplomatic circles believe, it says, that recently-invented German infernal machines are about to be used, the effect of which will be simply frightful. This form of punishment will hit the British suddenly and when off their guard. A Wilhelmstrase spokesman declared yesterday that the Luftwaffe had concluded the phase of preparation necessary to answer the British air offensive. “The severest counter-mea-sures will now begin,” he said.