The Waterbury Democrat., 1945-05-22

ropean fortress from the air.
 Specific objectives were the ship yards, oil plants and war produc- tion centers of Germany and Nazi- occupied countries. Weapons were the RATS Stirling, Halifax and Lan- caster four -motored bombers, cap- able of carrying eight tons of bombs each. Because the big ships were lightly armed and armored, the at- tacks were made at night.
 The offensive started out mod estly in December, 1940, with ser ies of raids on airdromes, ports and submarine bases along the occupied coast, and on the industrial cities of Rouen, Lille, Liege and Amsterdam. The scale of the attacks gave no hint of the holocaust to come.
 RAF Hammers Ruhr
 Then, as the spring of 1941 wore on and larger pools of planes and pilots became available, the raids took on added punch and scope. Growing fleets of British "heavies" roared out over the channel to batter Hamburg, Hanover, En- den, Bremen, Frankfurt and other German cities up to 400 miles from English fields.
 By August, the widening arc of attack had taken in Lubeck, Stutt- gart, Rostock, Schweinfurt, Dres- den and even Berlin, 600 miles away. The thud of blockbusters also could be heard in Milan, Turin and Genoa, in Italy, but within the same range. But still the devasta- tion of 1941, although impressive then, was just suggestion of what was in store.
 In the spring of 1942, after a ser ies of sharp attacks on Berlin, the RAF launched the battle of the Ruhr, production nerve center of the Reich. It started in May when force of 1000 British bombers dropped an unprecedented ava lanche of fire and death on Co., logne. Returning pilots called the city a molten hulk" That set the pattern for a succession of city, by-city blasts. Essen, home of the great Krupp armament works, reeled under five staggering as- saults. Dusseldorf, Duisberg and Dortmund also were hammered. and then the RAF switched back to Hamburg, Bremen, Rostock and Lubeck.
 That summer an event took place which was to mean the worst news of all for Air Marshal Her mann Goering. A fledgling Amer lcan bomber force swung out to join the attack. The first all- American mission came on Aug. IT. when l2 pioneer Flying Fortresses dropped 18 tons of bombs on Rouen. It was a small beginning, but American bases mushroomed throughout Britain the rest of the year, and by the spring of l943, the 9th Air Force under Mai. Gen. Ira E. Baker was ready for major mis- sions and even multiple raids.
 U. S. Theories Proved
 The British at first sniffed open- ly at the Americans theories of bombing. In the first place, they said, the Fortresses' bomb load four tons-was not heavy enough to be worth while. In addition. British exprience showed the Amer ican insistence on daylight raiding to be little shtrt of suicidal.
 Practice bore the American theory out. The Fortresses' precision bomb- sights enabled them to pin-point not only specific factories but spe- ciflc buildings in those factories, permitting an unprecedented eff clency in damage done per bomb. The new U. S. technique of flying in tight formations and arming their planes with veritable batteries of machine guns enabled them to take care Of themselves by daylight and to rack up unheard of totals of en- emy planes destroyed.
 Later, when the German fighters mounted rocket guns and 22-mm. cannon to wreak havoc with the close Fortress formations, the Amer jeans introduced long range fight CT escorts to tip the balance back.
 The RAF stepped up its assault, too, in the summer of 1943, carry ing out mighty saturation raids on Hamburg, Stuttgart, Hanover and Bremen. Operating on & 'round- the-clock basis, the two air com- mands had become complementary, not competitive, forces. Twenty-one German cities were marked for de- struction that autumn, and nine were so thoroughly battered they believed useless to the war. The re- malning 12 were damaged exten- sively.
 Berlin Is Blitxed
 On Nov. IS, the Allies inaugurat- ed series of raids designed to ob- literate Berlin, where Goering once promised the citizens a block-buster would never fall. To all effects and purposes, they succeeded. In the next five months, the German cap- ital rocked and shuddered under 18 devastating raids, each many times heavier than the worst Lon- don ever received. Great sections of the city-Swiss reports said 40 per cent-were flattened completely, the death list mounted past 10000 and c00 mo homeless fled fn outlvinU