Aerial offensive sweeping Europe
Nazis send pilotless bomb-loaded craft over Britain
By Gladwin Hill
SHAEF, London, England (AP) –
The Allied aerial offensive against continental targets swept on today after RAF heavy bombers made their second big high-altitude pre-dusk precision attack yesterday plastering 12,000-pound bombs on Nazi E-boat, R-boat and minesweeper pens at Boulogne.
Meanwhile, it was announced that the Germans, in a desperate gesture against Allied air superiority, had begun hurling pilotless bomb-carrying aircraft against Britain.
As the aerial assault im support of the Normandy invasion rolled on this morning, the German radio reported hostile aircraft approaching the Austrian provinces of Carinthia and Styria.
Big British four-engine Lancasters, with their fighter escort, hit the French channel port of Boulogne first at 10:30 p.m. yesterday – just before dusk. The attack was similar to one the RAF made Wednesday on installations at Le Havre – a strike which reconnaissance indicated was very successful.
Other British heavy bombers continuing the attack into the night, hit railway centers at Valenciennes and Lens and a fuel dump at Châtellerault. Fourteen bombers were missing from all these operations which Allied night intruder planes destroyed four enemy aircraft and damaged others over France.
The evening and night operations also saw a Mosquito force hit targets in western Germany. These blows were a thunderous follow-up to yesterday’s daylight operations which included attacks by an armada of 1,300 U.S. heavy bombers.
In addition to the U.S. heavy bomber blows, Supreme Headquarters announced that 3,000 sorties were made by Allied planes yesterday in direct support of the ground operations in Normandy. Many of these were flown by planes based in France.
During yesterday afternoon, medium bombers hit fuel and supply dumps, bridges and other communications targets from Valognes in the Cherbourg Peninsula to Laval about 75 miles behind the enemy lines.
The use by the Germans of pilotless aircraft against Britain was disclosed in the House of Commons by Herbert Stanley Morrison, Home Secretary and Minister of Home Security. A small number were used in raids on Britain last Tuesday morning, and a larger number last night and this morning. The latest attack was described as the more serious of the two.