(Qantara-Deutsche Welle-Germany) Joseph Croitoru - Israeli historians Benjamin Z. Kedar and Daniel Uziel reported in the Hebrew-language Israeli history journal Cathedra that the German Luftwaffe flew numerous missions over Mandatory Palestine from 1941 until September 1944, analyzing 286 aerial photographs made by the Luftwaffe which Kedar uncovered in the U.S. National Archive. Palestine only became accessible to the German Luftwaffe after the Wehrmacht's Balkan and Greek campaign in April 1941. Crete was captured by the Germans in May and could be used as a base along with Italian-occupied Rhodes. The first German long-range reconnaissance aircraft reached Haifa in June. On June 10, the Germans dispatched 50 bombers in the direction of Haifa. Three aerial photographs taken on May 28 were accompanied by information sheets marking air bases, the port and industrial area, oil storage facilities, Haifa's railway station and power plant, which was the main target hit by most of the bombs in the first German air raid. Two subsequent German bombing missions took place - the first targeting Haifa and the second bombing Tel Aviv, where one bomb killed ten people in an apartment building.
2021-10-07 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive