NAZI PLANE SHORTAGE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 83, 4 October 1941, Page 8

NAZI PLANE SHORTAGE

DRAIN OF WAR WITH RUSSIA

CHANGED SITUATION

RUGBY, October 2. In a leading article headed "Toward Air Mastery," "The Times" analyses Mr. Churchill's recent 1 statement in the House of Commons, in which he said: "The enemy's only shortage is, in the air." This, "The Times" states, i conveyed sober encouragement to the nation, and it adds that' this | shortage is because the Luftwaffe . is not strong enough to undertake an offensive on the Russian front | as well as an attack on Britain on ! a scale equal to that launched last September. j "The Times" points out that shotild the concentration be directed exclusively against Britain once more, Gerjmany still has a vast fighting force and sufficient reserves to deliver an assault at least as heavy as anything that jhas yet been experienced. The mounting figures of British and American production, however, should guarantee that the relative strength changes continuously and adversely to Germany. Regarding British production, which "The Times" states surpassed all previous records in the' month of September, the first claim on the increasing supply goes to Russia, a necessity which postpones great expansion of the home-based Air Force. FLOW OF AIR CREWS. "With every prospect of increasing activity in Africa and the possibility of the opening up of new fronts," the newspaper continues, "no expansion of our resources in the air can be too great—not even the1 immense reinforcement that, as Mr. Malcolm Mac Donald told us on Tuesday, is now pouring into Britain from Canada. "The Empire air training scheme in the Dominion has grown far rbeyond the original plan and is already months ahead of schedule. The High Commissioner described the output of trained airmen, which will reach a maximum next year, as 'already ter-1 rific,'' while at the same time the Canadian Air Minister was announcing the intention of doubling the number of schools and aerodromes at present in existence. "It is in this matter of the supply of trained men—and in the quality of that supply, for the R.A.F. has always insisted on really thorough training— that we have the best prospects establishing decisive superiority over the Luftwaffe."—B.O.W.