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Vast Damage Caused By Record Raid on 4 Targets Deep in EastGydnia, Danzig, German Plane Plants Are Blasted in Great Weekend Blitz; Bremen, Hanover Get It AgainAmerican Flying Fortresses and Liberators, flying from Britain on the longest mission yet carried out over the world's most heavily-defended territory, inflicted heavy damage Saturday on vital German military targets in East Prussia, Poland and northwestern Germany, it was announced officially last night by Eighth Air Force Headquarters.In one of the war's most spectacular bombing operations—which carried the American heavies in some cases to within 400 miles of the Russianfront—the Forts and Libs achieved‘Softening Up This Winter for Invasion’-EakerHe Cites Growing Aerial Blows, ButWarns Battle Is Far From OverUSAAF and RAF raids will continue throughout this winter to soften up Germany for invasion, Lt. Gen. Ira C. Eaker, Eighth Air Force commander, said last night in a radio speech to America’s war workers.The Allies* “stem assignment this winter/’ he said, was “to destroy factories and transport and weapons of the Germans so that our invasion casualties will be cut down.”Although Gen. Eaker stressed the growing might of Allied aerial attacks, he made it clear that the air offensive against Germany had not yet reached its ‘'maximum effort.”Now at “White Heat”“The battle has not yet reached its climax,” he said. “The fight is now on at white heat. We have just passed the fifth inning. We will win in the end and it will be a legal victory. There will be no lain checks and we won’t have to play the game over. We will see to that. But we have not yet reached the ‘seventh-inning stretch.’ ”Making public official statistics which illustrated the mounting tempo of the pre-invasion assaults, Gen. Eaker revealed that in September the tonnage of explosives dropped by American heavy bombers rose 50 per cent above the total of any previous month. In the same period, 262 Nazi fighters were destroyed by the bombers.“Still the offensive grows,” he asserted. “Already this month our bombers have mnrp than 4 400 tnriQ nf hnmhsthe following results, according to an announcement by Brig. Gen. Frederick L. Anderson, Bomber Command chief: The huge Focke-Wulf assembly plant at Marienburg, in East Prussia, 200 miles beyond Berlin, was described as virtually destroyed.Four ships in. the Polish port of Gdynia, including the 550-foot liner Stuttgart, were set afire. Docks, railway yards and workshops were hit.An aircraft component factory at Anklam, north of Berlin, was “severely damaged,” and at Danzig, large Baltic port, bombs struck oil storage tanks, buildings, a stores dump and railway communications.Foreshadowing the day when the aerial second front from Britain may be linked up with the vast ground front in Russia, the flight was the deepest penetration American bombers ever have made over Hitler’s roofless fortress.It gave eloquent testimony to the feebleness of German efforts to hamstring the Allied air offensive against the Reich, which Lt. Gen. Ira C. Eaker, Eighth Air Force commander, said last night could continue through the winter to soften up German defenses for invasion.26 Bombers Are LostTwenty-six American bombers were lost. Three of them, according to Stockholm reports, landed on Swedish soil and their .crews were interned.Four thousand men participated in the trans-Germany missions, Gen. Eaker revealed.The raid climaxed what was probably the most active weekend the USAAF and RAF have yet experienced—a weekend rounded out yesterday by further blows by American heavy bombers on western Germany.On Friday the USAAF and RAF both hi; Bremen in great strength. Gen. Eaker revealed that 4,000 Americans also had participated in the USAAF part of the double blow. American heavies also blasted Vegesack; the Marauders plastered a Dutch airfield. The RAF also struck Hanover. Mosquito crews, striking at Berlin Saturday night, said huge fires still were burning at Hanover. Swedish dispatches said the center of Bremen had been blaqketed with bombs./ C * r ^ D rt m/*» T nr
Newspaper Details
London Stars and Stripes
London, Middlesex, GB
Mon, Oct 11, 1943
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Cami K.
USA 20 Nov 2023
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