The Great Leveler

A shattering raid on Essen climaxed the Allies' round-the-clock bombing of Hitler's Festung Europa last week. In one 24-hour period R.A.F. pilots made more than 2,000 flights. U.S. heavy bomberst pounded U-boat bases along the French coast. Night-raiding British bombers roared across Germany, shifting from U-boat factories to munitions and communication centers. Berlin was hit (see col. 1), then Essen.

For 40 thunderous minutes British and Canadian crews flew over the city, delivering the 52nd attack on the home of the vast Krupp works, Hitler's greatest single source of armaments. Reconnaissance photographs later convinced the R.A.F. that acre upon acre of Essen had been leveled. Perhaps this time the R.A.F. had achieved what such bombing up to now had not accomplished: the permanent, irreparable destruction of an industrial target. Until that was proved true, the R.A.F. would come again & again, timing its assaults to undo the labor of reconstruction.

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