Slugging Fifteenth

In the craggy Yugoslav villages, where for three years the sound of aircraft had been a sign as dread as the shadow of a hawk's wing across a henyard, villagers looked up at first in fear. Then they rushed out and cheered: the big formations of heavy bombers drumming overhead in stately alignment were U.S. planes outward bound from their bases in Italy.

Tough Partisan soldiers could well toss their red-starred caps into the air and cheer for the white-starred bombers of Major General Nathan F. ("Nate") Twining's Fifteenth U.S. Air Force. The far-ranging Fortresses and Liberators were hitting within a wide arc all the way from Vienna down to Bucharest, and Nazi targets in occupied Yugoslavia were catching their share.

Bombs for Everybody. Twice within a week the Fifteenth attacked the important railway center of Zagreb; other attacks centered on the port of Spalato (Split) and the inland town of Brod, headquarters of a Nazi tank corps. But these jobs were only part of a busy week's work for the Fifteenth Air Force.

As a contribution to the massive and continuing assault upon Germany's air power, the Fifteenth sent more than 500 bombers to hit three Messerschmitt aircraft plants near Vienna. Three days later it launched another fleet of nearly 1,000 bombers and fighters, this time to throw a double punch at Nazi communications in Bucharest and Ploesti. This week the heavy bombers carried on with a smash at airdromes and railyards in Belgrade and Sofia, and struck at the Rumanian industrial city of Brasov, barely 100 miles from the Red Army front in Rumania. The Fifteenth was actually fighting in support of the Russian advance.

As boss of these operations, handsome, silvery-haired, 46-year-old Nate Twining runs his show from a regular Mussolini of a desk--a huge arc of walnut originally built to the specifications of an Italian general. Under its glass top are maps; above the maps Twining allows nothing but a pen and inkwell to linger.

Men on a Raft. A West Pointer, and an Air Corpsman since 1924, Twining headed the Thirteenth Air Force when it was formed in January 1943 to support the drive up the Solomon Islands. A few days later, Twining was flying in a Fortress from Henderson Field on Guadalcanal to Espiritu Santo. A violent tropical storm forced the plane down at sea, and General Twining and his men were adrift in rubber rafts for six days, living on fish and seagulls, before patrol bombers rescued them.

When Twining arrived in Washington last December, due for 30 days' rest, he dropped in to see General H. H. Arnold. "How do you feel?" asked Hap. Twining admitted he was a bit tired. Said Arnold: "You don't look a damn bit tired to me. Report in Italy Jan. 1 and take over the Fifteenth Air Force." Twining moved on. Between Dec. 14 and Jan. 1 he traveled 17,000 miles. But it was worth it. In power his new Fifteenth is second only to the Eighth Air Force in England.

Still setting up new operational records, Allied air power based in Britain launched attacks on some 40 targets in Germany and occupied Europe. The air strikes pounded French airfields, reached out as far as Posen and Gdynia in Poland, and Marienburg in East Prussia.

On one night the R.A.F. hit the war's heaviest air blow, sowing 4,000 tons of bombs on rail targets in France and Belgium. The Allies sent out fighter escort forces of over 1,000 planes, and on days when the heavy bombers were weatherbound, fighters and fighter bombers went out to rake Nazi airfields. In a week just over 600 German planes were shot down, another 100 destroyed on the ground; the Allies paid with 343 planes, still insisted that German fighter strength was getting progressively weaker.

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