Launching area for rockets hit
U.S. heavies strikes at Pas-de-Calais bases
SHAEF, London, England (AP) –
U.S. heavy bombers 500 to 700 strong hammered Hitler’s rocket-bomb launching area at Pas-de-Calais today as more of the pilotless explosives hurtled over into England, and other big Allied planes struck heavily at German air bases in southwestern France.
Fighter-bombers, attacking at the rate of one a minute, drove home a three-ply assault in direct support of the invasion forces. One wave pounded trapped German forces on northern Cherbourg Peninsula.
Another battered communications routes to the southeast over which the Nazis were trying to reinforce their armored divisions in the Tilly-Caen sector. The third stream bombed the area north of Paris, disrupting enemy reinforcement lines.
U.S. heavy bombers slashed at rocket installations after a night assault by the RAF, in which one plane was lost, and a raid in the same area Sunday by big U.S. bombers.
Other formations hit airfield targets including Bordeaux-Mérignac, Cazaux, and Corme-Écluse near the coast west of Cognac.
A rare stretch of bad June weather was still hampering air operations.
Deception fails
Fighter-bombers blasted to pieces one concentration of several hundred Germans. Col. Donald Blakeslee’s U.S. Mustang group saw what looked like a big procession of citizens out for a ride in horse shays, but when the pilots “buzzed” the cavalcade for a closer look, German soldiers dived for cover. The ammunition-loaded “shays” were sent up in a string of firecracker explosives while horses scampered across the fields.
The Germans are apparently making increased use of horse-drawn vehicles, indicating perhaps a shortage of motor vehicles or necessity of using horses to go over or around battered roads.
More than 1,300 U.S. heavy bombers hammered oil refineries and storage points in the Hamburg area and three enemy airdromes in Northwest Germany yesterday, while 250 other heavy bombers pounded the Pas-de-Calais area.
The Germans hurled more winged bombs at southern England today, carrying their attack with these new weapons into its fifth day.
Although the German threw up a flak barrage described as one of the heaviest yet encountered, not a single enemy fighter arose to challenge the mighty U.S. aerial fleet which struck into Germany yesterday. About 500 U.S. fighters accompanied the heavy bombers.
Only two German aircraft were sighted all day yesterday by U.S. 9th Air Force Thunderbolt, Lightning and Mustang pilots, who made more than 1,000 individual flights.