The Allied air offensive from bases in Britain mounted to 132 consecutive
hours—six days and five nights—yesterday as fighters and bombers streaked
across the Channel in daylight attacks on Nazi targets.
Allied forces barring the Japanese route to Australia are likely to be faced with
their sternest test of all during the coming few weeks, according to an informed
source from Gen. Douglas MacArthur's headquarters. It is believed that a
Japanese effort on a scale even larger than that beaten off during the battle of
the Coral Sea is imminent.
A bitter battle was raging in the Kuban area today where the Germans are trying to maintain their bridgehead against determined Russian assaults.
The land fighting is still in its initial stages as the Soviet troops use traditional
methods of artillery preparation and tank and infantry advances to nip off pill boxes
and fortified strongholds.
The Stars and Stripes
Daily Newspaper of U.S. Armed Forces in the European Theater of Operations
New York, N.Y.—London, England Monday, April 19, 1943
U.S. British, Russians Hit Nazis by Air
Photos Show Bremen
Plane Plant Blasted
In USAAF Day Raid
RAF Attacks Skoda Armament Factories
After Double American Blow
At Lorient and Brest
The Allied air offensive from bases in Britain mounted to 132 consecutive
hours—six days and five nights—yesterday as fighters and bombers streaked
across the Channel in daylight attacks on Nazi targets.
As the hours of the sustained offensive—longest this year—piled up,
reconnaissance flights brought back from the continent a picture of mounting
destruction of German armament works, plane factories, communications
and military centers, brought about in a series of day and night raids since
Tuesday which included some of the heaviest attacks of the war.
Over the weekend, American Flying Fortresses and Liberators struck two
heavy blows: at the Lorient and Brest sub bases on Friday, and at the
Focke Wulf airplane factories in Bremen,
Germany, on Saturday.
The RAF's biggest attack of the year struck the big Skoda arms works in Pilsen,
Czechoslovakia, and munitions plants at Mannheim and Ludwigshafen, Germany,
on Friday night.
The Russian air force made it a three-cornered offensive with stepped-up blows
Friday night on Danzig, Koenigsberg and Tilsit, all in tlie eastern domain of the
Nazis, where they have been striking intermittently for the last two weeks.
The RAF suffered its heaviest loss in one night, Friday, losing 37 bombers on
the Pilsen mission, and 18 over Mannheim.
The Eighth Air Force lost 16 planes in the unescorted mission to Bremen,
more than twice its previous highest loss for a single day. Seven bombers were
lost at St. Nazaire Jan. 1, seven at Wilhelmshaven Feb. 26.
On the Bremen raid the Flying Forticsses and Liberators reported " more
than 50 " enemy fighters shot down in the wildest aerial combat they had yet
encountered in this theater.
While RAF Ventures and Allied fighters took up the fray yesterday m
daylight blows at Dieppe, and other forces were striking in the occupied countries,
reconnaissance photographs showed the vast damage the Forts and Libs left when
they flew away from Bremen Saturday afternoon.
FW (Foke Wulf) Plant Hard Hit
Believe Sternest
Test Coming for
Allies in Pacific
ALLIED HQ, Australia, Apr. 18 (UP)
—Allied forces barring the Japanese route to Australia are likely to be faced with
their sternest test of all during the coming few weeks, according to an informed
source from Gen. Douglas MacArthur's headquarters. It is believed that a
Japanese effort on a scale even larger than that beaten off during the battle of
the Coral Sea is imminent.
Attempts to reoccupy Port Moresby and to gain control of the whole of New
Guinea are thought to be part of the plan.
Meanwhile, Allied bombers have attacked the Japanese base at Ambon,
the most important island in the Molucca group of the Dutch East Indies, to
counter an anticipated attack on Australia, today's official communique says.
Four Planes Down
Allied planes caused numerous explosions and started fires. Four Japanese
planes were shot down and one was damaged when the attackers were intercepted
by enemy fighters.
The explanation in .the communique that the raid was intended to counter an
anticipated Japanese attack "repeated the insistent warnings from Australia of an
expected enemy offensive.
Bitter Kuban
Battle Rages
Infantry in Initial Stages,
Furious Aerial Combat
Costs Foe 67 Planes
MOSCOW, Apr. 18 (UP)—A bitter
battle was raging in the Kuban area today where the Germans are trying to maintain
their bridgehead against determined Russian assaults.
The land fighting is still in its initial stages as the Soviet troops use traditional
methods of artillery preparation and tank and infantry advances to nip off pill boxes
and fortified strongholds.
The Germans have brought up heavy forces of bombing planes, with fighter protection.
During the last two days, Soviet dispatches from the front said, Red pilots
have brought down 67 Axis planes with a loss of 30 of their own.
Russians Take Hill
Indicative of the ferocity of the fighting was one minor engagement, described
in a Russian communique today. For 36 hours Russian guns, men and tanks hammered
at a fortified hill, finally capturing it. As soon as the Germans: had been
cleaned out of the position they brought up fresh reserves and launched a counterattack
with two regiments, supported by 50 tanks. Russian dispatches said the
attack was unsuccessful and that the Red troops held the position.
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