Bombing operations November 1944

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Title

Bombing operations November 1944

Description

Three newspaper cuttings describing attacks on Essen, Harburg oil refinery, Spitfire and Typhoon attacks on bridges and Aschaffenburg. They are captioned 'Nov 11th 1944'.

Date

1944-11-11

Temporal Coverage

Language

Type

Format

Three newspaper cuttings on an album page

Rights

This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.

Contributor

Identifier

SMarshallS1594781v10016

Transcription

NEARLY 5,000 TONS IN NIGHT ON ESSEN
More than 4,500 tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs were dropped on the great industrial city of Essen on Monday night.
Bomber Command has now dropped well over 19,000 tons on the Ruhr during October and has attacked the four largest cities – Essen, Duisburg, Dortmund and Bochum.

Nov 11th 1944
NAZI’S BIG OIL PLANTS HIT
Lancasters of R.A.F. Bomber Command have given Germany’s dwindling oil supplies another pounding.
The port and oil refineries at Harburg, south of Hamburg, and home of the two largest oil refineries in Germany, and the synthetic oil plant at Dortmund in the Ruhr, were hit on Saturday night.
For 40 minutes the Lancasters unloaded their bombs on Harburg, and fires were seen to blaze after the markers had gone down. The fires were followed by a “very large explosion,” says the Air Ministry.
The enemy relied on ground defences and few enemy planes were seen. Night fighters supported the bombers and one enemy fighter was shot down in combat.
Heavy explosions were observed at Dortmund soon after the bombing started.
Seven aircraft are missing from the night’s operations.
In day and night attacks on Reich targets on Saturday more than 2,700 tons were sent down.
Aircraft of the 2nd T.A.F. on Saturday destroyed three important railroad bridges and the enemy’s supply railways were cut in 62 places. Spitfires carrying 500lb. bombs, and Typhoons, some of which carried rockets, took part.
Road transport and river shipping were also attacked by Typhoon bombers in the Wassenberg area and across the Rhine.
A river ferry carrying a Tiger tank across the Maas at Venlo exploded when attacked by rocket Typhoons.
Mitchell bombers, some piloted by Dutchmen, bombed a junction on one of the most important railways linking Holland with Germany.

4,000 PLANES HIT NAZI OIL
Germany’s synthetic oil centres have felt the full weight of attack by nearly 4,000 Allied planes in the last 36 hours.
Phase Two, in a terrific onslaught on the enemy’s dwindling oil, was unleashed on Tuesday night by 1,500 R.A.F. planes only a few hours after a devastating daylight attack by 2,350 U.S. bombers and fighters.
In the night raid Halifaxes and Lancasters went for two Ruhr oil plants – at Sterkrade and Castrop-Rauxel – giving Sterkrade its fourth battering since D-Day.
A new target also received the attention of night bombers. Raiding [underlined] Aschaffenburg [/underlined] – a rail town 25 miles south-east of Frankfurt – in direct support of the advancing French Army, R.A.F. heavies poured bombs into the town for the first time.
“Last night I talked to American pilots who took part in the great daylight battle which was fought over Germany on Tuesday, when 80 German planes were destroyed,” says Victor Lewis, Daily Sketch Air Correspondent.
Captain W.T. Whisner, who destroyed six of the 250 German fighters thrown against the American bomber formation – which had a 1,100 fighter-plane protection – told me: “It took me just ten minutes to get my six. I went up behind a formation and shot them down one by one.”

Citation

“Bombing operations November 1944,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed November 3, 2024, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/2453.

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