4 U.S. bomber fleets blast France, Germany and Balkans
Yanks rake robot ramps, rail targets
By Walter Cronkite
SHAEF, London, England (UP) – (June 24)
Four flights of U.S. heavy bombers blasted France, Germany and the Balkans today, maintaining constant aerial assault on European on rail targets, airfields and the Calais rocket coast and Cherbourg Peninsula in France.
Three heavy bomber task forces sallied from Britain. The first pounded airfields and rail bridges: the second struck in Northwest Germany. and third hit nine robot bomb installations near Calais and switching stations near Boulogne.
The assault on the robot bomb ramps was the tenth by the heavyweights of the 8th Air Force this week, following an earlier raid by Havocs and Thunderbolt dive bombers. The Thunderbolts, providing top cover for the bombers, followed the Havocs’ bombs down in steep dives, loosening loads of heavy demolition bombs.
A third assault on the flying bomb installations was made by a daylight flight of British Lancasters and Halifaxes, escorted by fighters. One bomber was lost.
The day’s bomber operations opened with an attack on Cherbourg’s crumbling defenses by Marauders, which roared out at daylight to pitch 250 tons of bombs on four groups of heavy German guns, delaying the final lunge of ground troops into the prize port.
The once heavily-defended city greeted the Marauders with only slight ground fire and there was no enemy interception.
Although the sky was nearly clear of German aircraft, one squadron of Spitfires flown by Norwegian pilots engaged 12 Me 109s over Caen and shot down four without loss. Six of 15 Me 109s found aground on an airdrome in France were destroyed.
Meanwhile, numerous formations of 9th Air Force dive bombers and rocket-firing fighters of the RAF 2nd Tactical Air Force roared out over France to attack a series of rail targets ranging in a wide 200-mile arc from the Paris area to Granville on the south coast of Cherbourg Peninsula.