Evening star., 1944-02-21
Fourth Blow in
36 Hours Follows
Stuttgart Attack
By the Associated Press.

Flying FortresSes and Liberators
dealt the Nazi home front its
fourth great aerial blow in SO
hours by bombarding Northwest
Germany today, a few hours
after the RAF had hammered
Stuttgart on the southwest
border.
Todays American force was Off
cially announced as "aproximating"
the size of the record 2,0O0-plane
armada which struck Leipzig and
other key German centers yester-
day. The bomber section probably
again approached the 1,0O0-plane
figure, with an additional thousand
eScorting fighters-presumably the
9th Air Forces impressive array of
Thunderbolts, LightningS and Mus
tangs, backed up by Raj Spitfires.
The exact target was not an
nounced Immediately.
At the same time American Ma
rauder bombers hit the Coxyde air
base in Belgium.
126 Nazi Planes Downed.
Gen. H. H. Arnold, chief of Army
Air Forces, declared fourth of
German fighter production was
knocked out in the Sunday attack,
officially described as the greatest
daylight air operation in history.
A count today showed 1876 enemy
planes were shot down yesterday.
The latest announcement said
only that military installations"
were hit in Northwest Germany.
The Marauders and Raj Mos
quitoS jabbed into Northern France
and Belgium without loss.
Major damage" was done yester-
day to important Nazi fighter plants
at Leipzig, Brunswick and Bernberg,
the Air Force announced after a
study of reconnaissance photo
graphs.
The two main Messerschmitt
fighter assembly buildings at Leip-
zig-Mockau were severely damaged
by direct hits, two hangers at an
adjacent airport were damaged and
a parts plant at Leipzig -Heiterblick
was set afire.
Two Essential Factories.
"These two Leipzig factories are
the essential part of a production
complex that produced more than
half of Germany's Messerschmitt
109s since the two other principal
ME-109 production eenters at Re-
gensburg and Wiener Neustadt were
attacked by American Air Force
bombers," the announcement said.
An air ministry communique said
the attack on Stuttgart was "in
great strength" and that intense
fires" were left burning among the
factories of the city toward the end
of the raid when clouds lifted and
left clear target for thousands
Of tons of explosives.
The main RAF attack on Stutt-
gart, last raided on November 26,
was masked by Mosquito feint at
the Nazi party shrine of Munich
100 miles to the southeast. The Brit
ish loss in the nights stabs includ-
ing operations against other objec-
tives In occupied territory and ex-
tensive mine laying-was limited to
10 aircraft.
79 British Bombers Lost.
This loss was in marked contrast
to the Saturday night blow at Leip-
zig when 79 of the heavy British
bombers failed to come back as a re-
suit of enemy action and icing con-
ditions.
These manifold assaults lifted the
air war against invasion threatened
Germany to new pitch in a week
end high lighted by the devastating,
widespread and many -pronged
American blow yesterday described
officially as "the largest, most i'm
portant and most hazardous opera
ton" yet undertaken by the Ameri-
can strategic air forces.
The Americans greatest air op-
Grafton Of the war, hitting repeat
blow at Leipzig and at Gotha, Bern
burg, Brunswick, Halberstadt, Tu-
tow and Oschersleben, was declared
in Washington by Gen. Arnold to
have knocked out rs per cent of
Germany's fighter plane production.
(What Gen. Arnold meant, the
War Department here explained,
was that the new forays had
knocked out Is per cent of the
Luftwaffe's fighter production
capacity which remained after it
was announced last week that
United States air forces alone
(See RAIDS. Page A-16.)