AIR OFFENSIVE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 August 1943, Page 3

AIR OFFENSIVE

FURTHER RAIDS ON ENEMY AIRFIELDS ATTACKS IN NORTHERN FRANCE. SIXTEEN GERMAN FIGHTERS DESTROYED. LONDON, August 19. British and American aircraft today kept up their daylight raids on Ger-man-occupied airfields in Northern France. Sixteen enemy fighters were shot down for the loss of six Allied fighters. The Americans planes met strong flak and fighter opposition and fought their way there and back without losing a single plane. Both the British and American headquarters report that the bombing results were good. Spitfires covered the bombers’ operations and Typhoons and Spitfires made supporting sweeps over Northern France. This evening the offensive was kept up. People on the south coast saw waves of fighters flying out across the Channel. During the evening operations nine enemy planes were destroyed by fighters without loss to themselves. U=BOAT BASE WRECKED IN RAID BY AMERICAN AIRCRAFT. HAVOC AT TRONDHEIM. n LONDON, August 19. Three and a half years’ hard ,work on the German U-boat base at Trondheim, in Norway, by thousands of Norwegian and foreign workers was undone in less than 10 minutes by the American air raid on July 24, according to reports reaching Stockholm. The only undamaged spot within the target area was a concrete shed for six U-boats. All the buildings and workshops were destroyed. A gasworks was irreparably damaged. A German floating dock, one destroyer, a U-boat, four tugs and a merchantman in the harbour were sunk or badly damaged. HIGH=LEVEL BOMBING CHANGE IN GERMAN TACTICS. ANTI-AIRCRAFT DEFENCES STRENGTHENED. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9.40 a.m.) RUGBY. August 19. All the anti-aircaft defences on the south and south-east coasts of Britain have been strengthened to meet the Luftwaffe switchover from sneak raiding to high-level bombing. In previous months light anti-aircraft guns on the coast successfully countered the hit and run raider. Now, after a lull, it is the turn of the mixed batteries and heavy guns to deal with high-flying bombers. Fighter-bombers are using new methods of attack. How successful these mixed batteries have been is shown in reports from a south coast anti-aircraft brigade, where early in the week two “category ones’’ were awarded for planes definitely destroyed in a short night raid, and other awards allowed for raiders so badly damaged that they probably never reached home. A joint R.A.F. and United States communique states that the airfields attacked were those at Poix and Am-ienS-Glissy in France. These were raided early today and later another formation attacked Poix again. The bombers destroyed one enemy aircraft and fighters destroyed six. From these operations six fighters are missing