90 a Minute

Sixty thousand men & women labored through a cold winter's day in Britain last week. Seven thousand R.A.F. men listened to briefings. Then from airdromes all over England, 1,000 monster Lan-casters and Halifaxes sped for Berlin in their first big mission in 15 days.

The Luiftwaffe's night fighters climbed briskly to 30,000 feet. Berlin's anti-aircraft cannon hammered with fury and 43 of the four-engined bombers were downed. But within the space of half an hour 2,800 tons of explosives plummeted into the torn city--90 tons a minute. As the armada headed home, smoke from the fires of Germany's capital rose 20,000 feet in the air. It was the war's heaviest raid on bleeding Berlin or anywhere else.

Blow upon Blow. It was also the beginning of a new aerial offensive. While medium bombers and fighters worked over the invasion coast, the R.A.F. Bomber Command came back again. Leipzig took more than 2.500 tons.

The desperate Luftwaffe met the raiders. Of almost 1,000 R.A.F. bombers, 79 failed to return. But the Luftwaffe's fighter power was unable to meet the next blow.

More than 2,000 U.S.A.A.F. bombers and fighters, the greatest strike the U.S. has launched, swept in bright daylight across the Channel, hit Leipzig again, hit Oschersleben, hit Gotha, hit Bernburg, hit Brunswick, hit Halberstadt, hit Tutow, hit Posen. It was a big, bewildering show.

At least 61 Luftwaffe craft were shot down by escorting fighters. Bombers accounted for many more. Of the U.S. air armada only 22 bombers were lost, less than half a dozen fighters.

The stepped-up air offensive went on. R.A.F. bombers "in great strength" smote the aircraft engine center at Stuttgart. Next day U.S.A.A.F. bombers were up again with another force of almost 2,000.

Germany did its best in retaliation. Twice in the week Nazi planes bombed London and sprinkled it with incendiaries (see below). London burned again, but only in isolated spots. The fires and destruction were nothing to compare with the holocaust of Berlin, where a third of the city, possibly more, lay in total ruin. To Berliners there would be no "greatest" raid any more. Death is not comparative.

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