Pressure from the Top

Allied air power worked on Germany last week like a two-man saw. East of the Oder River, U.S. Mustang fighters from bases in Britain flew wing to wing with Red Army Yaks to beat off a German attack on a Russian airfield. In Austria, Hungary and Yugoslavia, Americans from Italy joined Russian airmen in attacks. U.S. Mustangs downed German fighters shooting at Red bombers.

At Zossen, only 20 miles from Berlin, a special mission of 650 U.S. heavies spread fire and ruin over a large barracks, reportedly the German General Staff's Headquarters. At Swinemuende, ships loading supplies for Stettin got it hot & heavy. At Oranienburg, a focal rail point for the Oder front, more than 700 U.S. bombers put on the strangle. Berlin was hit with a record U.S. attack (1,300 bombers, 700 fighters) on rail yards and armaments factories. British Mosquitoes went into their fifth week of unbroken nightly bombings of the German capital. Re-rigged R.A.F. Lancasters flew to Bielefeld and dropped the biggest bomb yet--an eleven-ton monster promptly dubbed "Townbuster."

The Germans had little with which to counter, except their greatly increased flak concentrations--now more a menace than the Luftwaffe. Over battered Berlin, against the U.S. 1,300-bomber raid, the Germans sent up the biggest flak barrage Eighth Air Force men had ever seen, along with the biggest show of buzzing, jet-propelled fighters. Their great speed swirled them through bomber formations, but U.S. gunners got some of them. The cost: 25 bombers, five fighters.

The land fronts were slowly closing in. But the air fronts were already joined, and pressure from the top constricted the enemy more & more. Last week the U.S. Ninth Air Force was operating two airfields inside Germany itself.

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