Defeat of an Air Force

The Anglo-U.S. heavy bomber forces searched the remnants of the Reich for targets last week, and found moderately good hunting: rail yards, airfields, oil and ordnance depots, an explosives plant, shipyards and shipping, U-boat pens. One day when U.S. Eighth Air Force bombers and fighters attacked airfields in the Berlin area, the Luftwaffe reacted violently, sending up the biggest swarms of jet planes the Americans had ever seen. All over the blue sky, twisting white vapor trails mingled with the black streaks of burning, falling planes.

Some of the Germans dove on the bombers with jets open. "They would straighten out," said one U.S. pilot, "and strafe from underneath. One did this trick, and let a rocket go into a Fort of our formation. The Fort disappeared. . . ."

The U.S. lost 25 bombers and eight fighters that day, but the cost to the Luftwaffe was catastrophic--397 planes.

Roughest Blow. This week came a historic blow: 845 German planes were knocked out in a single day of attacks by more than 6,000 Allied planes. The Luftwaffe apparently was flat on its back--812 of its planes had been splintered on their own fields. The total since April 1 was close to 3,000. General Carl A. Spaatz issued a special order of the day: the strategic air war had been won; hereafter U.S. heavy bombers would range on tactical missions.

The Nazis had managed to increase airplane production in the late months of 1944, after dispersing and hiding their assembly plants. They now evidently had more planes than they could fuel. The German High Command may have decided to toss the Luftwaffe on the funeral pyre, along with everything else.

End of the Scheer. The R.A.F. kept up its incessant bombing of Berlin--which reconnaissance pilots called "a dead city" --and smashed Potsdam, cradle of the German army. The British also attacked German ports and shipping off the north coast. After a raid on Kiel, where the flyers saw a tremendous explosion, reconnaissance photographs showed the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer, capsized and sunk in the inner basin.

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