NOW IN PROGRESS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 July 1943, Page 4

NOW IN PROGRESS

ONE OF WORLD’S GREATEST AIR BATTLES RUSSIANS MORE THAN HOLDING THEIR OWN. GERMANS TRYING NEW TACTICS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 10.5 a.m.) RUGBY, July 7. The Germans are using great strength in an attempt to gain air mastery of the Russian front, for which the two forces are contending in what, according to one message, is becoming one of the world’s greatest air battles. The Russians are said to be more than holding their own. , Although the Germans are clinging to their old tactics of tank warfare, they are continually changing their methods of aerial fighting, and the two days’ battle disclosed new variations, states an agency correspondent. Unlike most previous attacks, this onslaught has not been preceded by an intensive bombing, over several days, of Russian airfields and communica-, tions, with the usual climax of air bombardment of the troops themselves. Perhaps the Germans omitted such aerial preparations in the hope of achieving a surprise. If so, they failed —on the first day and again on the second day, when they changed the direction of their blow. Not only was the Soviet artillery equal to the occasion, but the skill and daring of the Red sappers, in setting up minefields, spelled doom for many enemy tanks. The strength of the Luftwaffe is being exerted chiefly in large groups, in the hope that a strong bomber formation, with an escort of Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulfs, giving concentrated fire power, will be able to beat off opposition. But the Soviet fighters took the initiative from the Luftwaffe, broke its formations, and forced the Germans to accept many dogfights simultaneously. Another change of tactics is the abandonment by the Germans of an attempt to block Soviet aerodromes and chase the Soviet fighters from the skies over the sectors of most violent fighting. Most of the enemy fighters are protecting bombers attempting to drop bomb loads from the lowest levels, in order to blast the Soviet infantry from the trenches. This manoeuvre, meeting rifle, machine-gun and artillery fire from the ground, directed against these bombers, proved a great help to the Soviet fighters.