AIR STRENGTH

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 286, 3 December 1941, Page 8

AIR STRENGTH

PARITY WITH NAZIS

NEW CHIEF FOR N.Z. (P.A.) WELLINGTON, this day. In an interview Air-Commodore Ft. V. Goddard, who has arrived to take up the post of Chief of the Air Staff in succession to Air-Commodore Saunders, said: '.'ln total air strength we have reached parity with Germany. That has happened consider-, ablv earlier than it could possibly have happened because of the fighting in Russia." He said he did not regard the Germans as inferior to our pilots and airmen. It was the thorough training that gave our men a definite j advantage. ] England could not be successfully j invaded unless the Fighter Command was crippled, and there was such flexibility in the employment of the Command and such a multiplicity of aerodromes available that the crippling of the Command would need a much greater effort on the part of the Germans than had so far been seen, plus novel methods and great expenditure of men and material. He said of Russia that technicaily she had kept very well up to date and had some first-class equipment, as the Germans had found to their cost. Air-Commodore Goddard was in France with the British Expeditionary Force as a senior staff officer, and after the Battle of France was appointed Director of Army Cooperation Command. The development of this organisation has been his task, and recent experience in Egypt has shown the value of this co-operation.