NAZI INVASION ?

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 180, 31 July 1940, Page 5

NAZI INVASION ?

HITLER'S PROBLEMS.

SEA AND AIR POSERS.

AND IF THEY LANDED J

LONDON, June 22.

Mr. Churchill's review of the possibilities of invasion of this country must have recalled to a great many people the famous remark of St. Vincent in the House of Lords in the time of Napoleon: "I do not say the enemy cannot come; I only say they cannot come by sea."

Mr. Churchill indicated that the Navy Would be glad of a chance of "something to bite on." Supposing a combined air and sea operation were attempted, the air sending the bombers and parachutists to cause confusion ahead of the main fcea-bonie invasion. What would be then the question? asks the naval correspondent of the '"Manchester Guardian." Germany's Bases. The main thing to consider is the bases from which the lloating transports could start. Field Marshal Goering lias exulted over Germany's control of the Channel ports, and has claimed that "Britain's main seaway to the outer world is nowruled by Germany." But Boulogne, Calais, Zeebrugge, and the Hook, which are the ports offering the shortest sea passage to England, are all heavily blocked with debris and wrecks that we planted there to impede an invasion. Those harbours are not at present usable for transports.

Even if the Germans have Le Havre and Cherbourg, there is not enough shipping there available for the carriage of troops, and it cannot be assembled there because it would have to pass from northern ports through-the Dover Patrol to get there.

Antwerp and Flushing are the nearest bases that Hitler could use at present. He would.have to assemble a large fleet of transports in the mouth of the Scheldt to do it. Mr. Churchill expressed the

view that to transport 100,000 men would need between 200 and 250 ships. That armada would have to move 240 miles by sea if the blow was aimed at the Hull area; it would have to move 135 miles to throw its men ashore in the Dover area.

It is almost certain that there are not fifty large transports in the Scheldt at present. Could the army be moved in large Rhine barges sent to Antwerp from the interior of Germany? Yes, a period of fair weather, the feat is possible if there were no British Navy. But the slow-moving barges would take from 24 to 26 hours to make the crossing from Antwerp to Dover or to Hull, and as there would be hundreds of them they could hardly hope to escape detection either by aircraft patrols or, even in misty weather, by the sea patrols. They would cover so much sea area that our outpost vessels must run into them. U-boats and Aircraft. Without disclosing British naval dispositions, it can be said that the German escorting forces, would be countered by several times their numerical strength in the corresponding classes of big ships. Our small-craft flotillas in the North Sea, when concentrated, are very much larger than the available German force.

The U-boats would almost certainly operate independently, trying to maintain submarine traps at some distance from the main invading body, to intercept our vessels on the way to the attack. There would also certainly be heavy air forces as guards to the armada. But we, too, have submarines, which have shown in the Skagger-Rak and Kattegat that they know how to deal with enemy troopships. At least 52 German transports and supply shipshave been sunk, mainly by submarines, in the course of the Norwegian operations.

A German overseas raid could only be made under cover of darkness. But at this time of the year it is dark only from about 10 p.m. to 4 a.m., and in six hours a big convoy moving at a maximum of eight knots would cover less than 50 miles of the distances to the south-east or east coast. No one has. yet developed a "blitzconvoy," and if Hitler has done it he has indeed produced a secret weapon.

"I do not say the enemy cannot come; I only say they cannot come by sea." Then can they come by air? To move ( an expeditionary force of 250,000 men

with their equipment and supplies means the movement of 130,000 tons every day for several days. If that weight—men, machinery and foodstuffs —is to be carried by sea there will have to be at least 34 transports leaving port fully laden every day during those "several days." Air Transports. Air transports cannot carry more than one-thousandth of the loading of a ship. So we arrive at the figure of 30,000 to 40,000 aircraft flights in one day to move the same weight as 34 ships. There are about 18 hours of daylight at this time of the year, and with the utmost efliciency in loading and unloading the aircraft they might make five flights a day. From which we can deduce that to transport and supply an expeditionary force of 250,000 men by air the Germans would need between 6000 and 8000 freight-carrying -or troop transport 'planes if they rely solely oa air invasion and give up the hope of any supplies borne by sea.

Those figures show clearly that airborne invasion (even if there were 110 opposition) would impose an impossible strain on the available resources. But we know from the experience of the R.A.F. in the Dunkirk withdrawal that once the enemy aircraft are concentrated on a specific objective our airmen can bring down 350 out of 1500 enemy 'planes in the course of a week. It is a simple arithmetical sum in the law of diminishing returns to see what would be the outcome of an attempt to land 250,000 men with their supplies by air in this country against opposition by tfc*; R.A.F., without taking into account what would happen to the troop carriers and the supply craft when they were 011 the ground here.