They Saw Rockets

U.S. flyers in Britain related grim eyewitness accounts of the latest Nazi "secret weapon," the plane-fired rocket. During Oct. 14th's Fortress smash at the Schweinfurt ball-bearing works, Nazi fighters, armed with the new projectiles, soared to the attack in "layers" of 60 planes each. Said Colonel Budd J. Peaslee, returned co-pilot of one of the Forts: "I saw plenty of rockets. I thought that none of us was going to get back!"

Each of the twin-engined enemy fighters seemed to carry four rocket-guns which were fired at a 2,000-yd. range, well beyond the effective range of the bomber's heavy machine guns. Peaslee added: "For the first 200 yards the rockets left a trail of smoke and appeared to be gaining momentum. When they exploded, they were twice as big as any flak, and I've seen plenty of flak!"

Peaslee's ship reached home peppered with rocket fragments. Sixty other Forts had plunged earthward.

Change of View

Flak got five R.A.F. Wellingtons over Berlin the night of Nov. 14, three years ago, and a pilot parachuted into the Teltow Canal near Tempelhof Airport. Middle-aged civilian wardens fished him out, escorted him to a police station. The police gave him hot Ersatzkaffee. The prisoner made a face and everyone laughed.

In Sweden last week Staff Sergeant Benny Spring, 22, of Denver, an exchanged prisoner of war (see page 32), had a different story to tell. Benny was a gunner in a wounded Flying Fortress and had to bail out near Hamburg last July. He landed "almost in the arms" of three German soldiers, was herded with seven other Americans into a box car, trundled to Lueneburg. At a way station an angry crowd gathered, threw rocks, splashed hot coffee on the flyers, shouted "Schwein," worked up a lynching temper. The guards motioned to the prisoners to follow, started dodging through blacked-out alleys toward a police station. Another crowd blocked the way, and one or two of the soldiers offered to lend the prisoners revolvers if shooting started. It did not, but Benny was sure the civilians would have killed him if they had got the chance.

Three years had changed the German view of bombing.

Aerial Argument

Last week U.S. heavy bombers based in Britain attacked one German city in seven days. R.A.F. heavy bombers based in Britain attacked four German cities in seven nights. The Luftwaffe lightly raided London seven nights in a row. For Allied airmen in western Europe this pattern of events had some important and bitter meanings.

In the 215th week of the war, as airmen once planned it, Allied bombers should have roared over many more German cities in much greater force. By the 215th week of the war, the Luftwaffe should have been wiped from the skies.

U.S. and British airmen conducting the strategic aerial offensive from Britain take a dim--and angry-- view of that disappointment. FORTUNE Editor Charles J. V. Murphy recently interviewed them, came up with a strong statement of their position for the December issue of FORTUNE :

"The airmen . . . want to fight their own kind of war. Or rather they want more of what is left of this war to be fought their way. The airmen, from the beginning, have been at odds with the Russian argument for a land front of the orthodox sort in the west. They are equally unimpressed with the prospects in the Balkans.

"From bitter experience the airmen know that as soon as large numbers of men and ships become committed to a campaign, the generals and admirals start calling unceasingly for air power--for fighters to provide them with cover, for bombers to harass and pulverize the enemy. This sets up an unending drain upon the strategic air force which the airmen have been trying to build up in Britain for the destruction of the German war economy."

But strategic airmen, even in voicing these plaints, realize that they are too late. For better or worse, the adopted --and working--Allied strategy has already ruled out an air offensive on the airmen's scale. What they now ask is that the Allied high commands, having limited the aerial objective to one of attrition in support of ground and naval forces, allow the airmen to do their utmost within the new limit. As one high-ranking airman told Murphy: "We don't want the overall strategy changed in time, but only bent a little in favor of air."

West v. South. The assertion of these views has produced some enlightening debate in both London and Washington. Some of the points raised:

> By failing to press the air attack home with sufficient aircraft, the Allies have misused their greatest opportunity of the war and have allowed the Germans to correct the mistake they made in not anticipating the growth of Allied air power. Eighteen months ago the Germans had only a handful of experimental night fighters; now the Luftwaffe has 700 first-line night fighters. 1,800 fighters of all types in the west.

> Unless U.S. air strength in Britain is greatly increased, U.S. losses will continue at the high but not yet prohibitive October rate of 174 bombers in the first 23 days (seven raids on twelve cities). Because U.S. allocations of bombers to Britain are lower than expected, British bomber losses are all the more serious.

> The drain of bombers to the Mediterranean curtailed bombing from Britain, affected air crews' morale, and raised some questions which are still unanswered. With in a 600-mile radius of Britain's airdromes lie the principal industrial targets of western Europe. Southern Italian bases are actually farther than British bases from Nazi industry's "golden triangle." The assumption that mild Mediterranean weather, opportunities for shuttle-bombing from west and south, and other advantages would immediately alter the bombing picture were premature. It will take time to build up in southern Europe a strategic air base equal to that already built in Britain; winter weather over the targets in Germany is the same, whether bombers come from the west or south.

Mediterranean strategists have some good arguments in reply. One of their best points: whatever airmen in Britain may think, the planes "diverted" to North Africa and southern Europe played an enormous part in an enormous blow at German confidence, helped to open the first breach in mainland Europe. An important effect of that breach, and of deepening it, will eventually be to confront the Luftwaffe with a two-or-three-front air war over Germany itself. A small beginning could be seen this week in the report that bombers and fighters based in the Mediterranean area had attacked objectives in Austria.

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