AIR WAR BLUNDER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 103, 3 May 1941, Page 6

AIR WAR BLUNDER.

PARKED GERMAN TANKS. THE MPBE TRAGEDY. LONDON. On May 20, 1940, when the fate of France was in the balance, R.A.F. bombers were sent to raid Essen and Hamm instead of battering the enemy lines. On the Meuse the German tanks, arrayed for battle, presented sitting targets waiting to be smashed up. But the Allies chose industrial targets, and patted themselves on the back for it! This is one of the tragedies of the early, black days of the war, revealed in "The Diary of a Staff Officer." The anonymous author was an R.A.F. intelligence officer at the British Air Force Advanced Headquarters in France. He teaches a lesson that dare not be forgotten. Just before the Essen raid he picked up his diary and wrote: "The Germans are being allowed to rest at night as peacefully as they would at home. "The whole essence of a possible success lies in holding up German reinforcements and gaining the time necessary to organise a powerful flanking counter-attack destined to cut the Amiens-Sedan pocket in half. "There now comes in an Air Ministry message saying they will attack the marshalling yards. This means targets such as Hamm, east of Essen. We need help closer at hand if the armies are to be saved." The same day he recorded that the Allies intercepted German wireless messages: "All bombers to Cambrai," and a little later: "All fighters to Arras." Then: "All fighters on the way." Yet, by the time the decoded message had been checked, doublechecked and verified "according to regulations," the enemy aeroplanes had arrived, done their work, and gone.