Walter Cronkite, correspondent with United Press (UP), poses with the crew of a U.S.O. airplane during World War II. Photo courtesy Cronkite Papers/University of Texas at Austin
LONDON, June 4, 1944 (UP) - Some 4,000 Allied warplanes gave Nazi Atlantic wall fortifications and Nazi military road and rail transport in France and Belgium their worst pasting Saturday, with nearly 1,000 American heavy bombers and fighters pacing the assault with twin attacks on France's Pas-De-Calais and Boulogne areas. Only one fighter plane was lost.
(Early Sunday, the German radio said Allied "nuisance" raiders were over western Germany, approaching the southwestern Reich, the F.C.C. reported.)
More than 2,000 American and British fighters and fighter-bombers swept over hundreds of square miles of occupied territory, bringing railway right-of-ways, highway bridges, radio stations, fuel dumps, air fields, warehouses, military convoys and lone German dispatch riders under their rocket, cannon and machine gun fire.
The air ministry said the attacks on road transport were "among the most comprehensive and successful yet attempted" and disclosed that British planes were completely wrecking the German radio network in northwest Europe - an essential objective of pre-invasion tactical strategy.
