Last Gasp

Allied air forces kept a careful death watch over the Luftwaffe last week. There were a few last gasps of fight left in the once-mighty German giant, but as a cohesive, organized force it was as good as buried. In a few weeks it had been whittled down from 14,000 to probably less than 3,000 planes. Most of those remaining were dispersed piecemeal, many without hope of fuel. Perhaps the number operable in the final stages of Germany's stand was less than 1,000.

Allied airmen would always remember April 1945. In its first 17 days they had knocked out 4,139 German planes, most of them parked on overcrowded airfields. In one wonderful day of ground-gunning, Allied pilots had racked up the amazing total of 1,016 destroyed aloft and aground. Last week the thinning targets yielded some 700 more enemy aircraft. The cost of two weeks' superb hunting had been less than 100 Allied planes.

Now there was no longer strategic bombing, as such. There were no more targets worth the effort. The vast and costly job of choking the Luftwaffe, bringing it to its knees by destroying its plane and parts factories and its oil supplies, was now bombers' history. To the fighters remained the final kill.

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