GREAT EFFECT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 June 1943, Page 4

GREAT EFFECT

OF THE ALLIED BOMBING OF GERMANY EMPHASISED BY OBSERVERS IN BRITAIN. ENEMY DEFENSIVE EFFORTS. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 1.20 p.m.) LONDON. June 27. “Considerable strengthening of the defences of Western Germany and a great evacuation from the same area show the severe effects of the R.A.F. raids. The Germans are putting a night fighter into the air for every bomber we are sending over the Ruhr —a standard of defence not dreamt of six months ago,” says the aviation correspondent cf the British United Press. The twelve major raids on the Ruhr and Rhineland since Mas 23 add up to a most amazing bombing achievement. It is estimated that more than 17,000 tons of bombs were dropped on targets where the population totals five millions. Goering, to secure this effect, would have needed to bomb London on 54 nights successively on the scale of his biggest raid—one in which 500 tons of bombs were dropped on eight million people. We lost 334 aircraft in the twelve raids. This is a considerable loss, but the fact that we were able to employ such forces and suffer such losses, and yet maintain the bombing indicates the rate of production of our factories. The losses were due mainly to the enormous concentration of fighter planes over the Ruhr.” Washington observers believe the thousand fighter planes which Mr Elmer Davis says Germany has assembled in the Ruhr in an effort io check the R.A.F’s. blows comprise more than half the Germans’ total fighter strength. Observers consider that the Allies are well on their way to winning the Battle of Europe. They say the weight of Allied air blows is greater than the most optimistic forecasts of two months age. Predictions of victory have been revised sharply upward, because of the devastating results of the Allies’ systematic and scientific aerial bombardment.