The Wilmington morning star., 1943-12-15
Primary Industrial Targets
Victims OF Allied
Assaults x
FURY IS MOUNTIf,
u. S. 9Th Air Force Is Con-
stantly Growing In
Strength
FURY IS MOUNTIk

|
About 60 per cent of Germany's
primary industrial targets already
have been destroyed by the ham,
merblows of the combined Amer
lean and British air fleets, it was
reliably reported today.
The primary targets are so
Industrial centers considered es-
sential to the German war ma
| chine, informed persons here said.
If the figures used recently by
Ali Marshal Sir Arthur Harris
40 "vitaF' centers instead of So
are used as a basis for estimat-
ing damage, the percentage per-
haps would be even more impress
aive. However, Harris classed an
ether so industrial targets as "con-
siderably important" to the Ger
man war machine, a total of 80
cities within the Reich marked for
The kind of destruction visited up
or Hamburg, Cologne, B erli n,
SchWeinfurt and Emdel.
Rebuilt Immediately
The destroyed facilities, nowev-
e.. cannot be considered as jobs
done once and for all-,the Ger
mans usually begin immediate re-
building of essential factories. and
the Anglo-Amerlcan airmen try to
pay them a return visit just about
the time they are ready to start
production again.
The mounting fury of the air
offensive is indicated also by an
estimate that IS per cent of all
the bomb damage so far accom-
piished within Germany has been
inflicted in 1943 The U. S. 9th
Air Force particularly, is growing
constantly in power. and sending
progressively larger fleets of heavy
hombers over Europe.
In sharp contrast with conditions
d year ago, when the 9th bomber
command was hardly more than
a token force, the Americans in
their daylight operations are now
dispatching greater fleets of planes
than the Raj in its night attacks.
A steadily increasing number of
American heavy bombers is &C.
ccmpanied by mounting long-range
fighter strength, and the fighters
are escorting the bombers on deep
er penetrations i n to Germany.
New and advanced fighter types
are said to be. almost ready to
make their appearance in the Eur
opean theater-a report yesterday
from London said there is every
prospect of new American fighters
joining the established groups
and the escort range probably will
go beyond the 600-mile round trip
that is the longest yet reported.
ignificantly, the m un n g
strength of Anglo American air
power might be said to be ''pyra-
miding'' relative to German air
strength, which is declining both
because of destroyed or damaged
plane factories end because of at
Triton in air battles.
This declining strength already
is being reflected in the inability
of the Luftwaffe to keep its air
defense ring intact. In the near
future, the Germans will probably
find it impossible any longer to
c;sperse their air strength they
will have to guess the targets
of Allied bombers and concentrate
their fighters on the basis of those
guesseS.
Occasionally they will que S
right, and extremely heavy losses
can be expected on those occa-
sions. Just as often, however, they
will guess wrong, and then the
bonbers losses will be extraorct-
narily light-as they have been
on one or two recent occasions.
The much-discussed peck e t
bombing of American bomber for
nations by specially equipped Ger
Continued on Page Five; Col. -