Shock of Arms

Allied air power and German air power met last week with a violence which foreshadowed the battle to come in Western Europe. The Luftwaffe was fighting for its life; the Allies were striking at the factories which supply Germany's air replacements.

Pilots and gunners on both sides fought with rage and skill, called every device of air war into play. At week's end the Allied airmen had won victories, had inflicted grave injuries, and had paid heavily.

Bombardiers' Weather. Early in the week huge formations of American heavy bombers--700 in all--trundled up from dozens of English airbases into the morning sunlight. Their main objectives: three of Germany's key aircraft assembly plants, at Oschersleben, Brunswick, Halberstadt, 400 miles from Britain's shores.

Fighters escorted the bombers all the way in and back. The escort operated in waves: first, P-38 Lightnings, then P47 Thunderbolts. Finally, long-range P-51B Mustangs (see p. 61) came in for the final approach and run over the targets.

Almost from the start, the mission was hell in the heavens. The Germans attacked over Holland's Zuider Zee, never stopped for long. They used tactics and strength which they must have been cautiously hoarding for pre-invasion battles.

Yellow Fire. A flight of 32 Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulfs tackled a leading squadron of Thunderbolts. Other German fighters bored straight through at the bombers. First, four Focke-Wulfs; then 30; then twelve; then they poured in, slamming through the tight gun-studded bomber formations without even rolling over.

The first enemy waves had the job of breaking up the bomber squadrons. Rocket-firing planes stayed out of gun range, fired broadsides from formation. To the U.S. crews, the battle at this stage had a weird naval quality. A Fortress gunner watched a group of 18 twin-engined Me-110s circle from the rear, fly up in line three-quarters of a mile away; then, like torpedo boats, execute a superb 90-degree turn and lob their rockets simultaneously--"a broadside of rockets that seemed to burst in an unending line of red and yellow fire." Some bombers were under continuous attack for as much as 90 minutes; 24 hours later the men were still tense and grim-eyed, haunted by the strain of battle.

German accounts later told of new air mines--explosive containers trailed by steel cables from planes at high altitude and dropped to burst amid the bomber squadrons. Old weapons and young pilots were also thrown into the struggle. Obsolete Stukas (dive bombers), even a clumsy twin-engined transport milled about, trying to confuse the U.S. formations. The German radio said that Reich Marshal Hermann Goring had ordered into battle "youngsters who never before had engaged in combat."

The German radio claimed a complete victory, said that 136 U.S. planes had been destroyed. The Eighth Air Force delayed full accounts until Intelligence officers mounted in jeeps combed England for firsthand reports from bomber crews who had come down at strange bases for fuel, repairs, first aid. Actual U.S. combat losses: 60 bombers, five fighters--plus, as usual, many planes and crews shot up but able to limp home. But 152 German planes had been shot down, direct bomb hits had been scored on the main targets: a Messerschmitt plant in Brunswick; a Junkers wing factory in Halberstadt; the key Ago works in Oschersleben, where the blunt, deadly Focke-Wulf igos are spawned.

In the U.S., Air Forces General Henry H. Arnold cheerily proclaimed that the plants had been "wiped out" of production for months. London comments were more cautious, pointing out that destruction of one part of a factory does not necessarily halt all work there, and that the Germans have proved themselves fast and expert rebuilders.

In bomber losses the Eighth Air Force had been so hard hit only once before: when 60 heavy bombers went down in a telling attack on the Schweinfurt ball-bearing works last October. Then, the Eighth had to take a long pause. This time the Eighth proved that it had beefed up its reserves: three days after the raid on the aircraft plants, U.S. planes teamed with R.A.F. bombers to carry out a 1,400-plane, all-day attack on the French invasion coast.

Death Blow. By night, 700 R.A.F. bombers revisited pummeled Brunswick, gave it the most concentrated air dose in history. In 23 minutes, 2,240 long tons of bombs fell. Clouds covered the city and its 200,000 people burning trails set by pathfinder planes guided the bombers.

Dispatches to neutral Sweden said that Brunswick had "ceased to exist," estimated that 12,000 persons were dead, 50,000 bombed out. Those who could fled from the burning city into the Harz Mountains. But the Luftwaffe is not yet ready to take to the hills: 38 British bombers went down that night.

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