War From the Air

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23942, 8 May 1943, Page 4

War From the Air

There is a growing belief that air power will be the decisive factor in winning the war. The swelling programme of raids on the nerve centres of German strength is doing what Goering planned to .do in Britain. He knew what air power could do; he did not know that his power was not enough, that it could be withstood, and that a power greater than his own would grow from the resistance. Superiority in the air to-day has definitely changed hands; and Goebbels, the Nazi mouthpiece, betrays his fears in threats of reprisals. But this is not to say that the end is in sight, though the means to the end are being assembled and confidence in their effectiveness grows every day. The strength of the Allied air offensive is not yet at its peak; it is still checked by being dispersed and will continue to be until the North African land operations are successfully concluded. “ Bomber Command,” says Peter Masefield in the “ Sunday “ Times,” “ is at present carrying on “ under severe limitations in num- “ bers. It has been reduced in “ strength far below what was “ planned for it.” It can still do no more than severely impede the German 'war effort. Operating at full strength, it will operate decisively, because it will “ soften ” German resistance to the combined operations of invading forces, wherever they strike. British and American air strategists, who appear to have reached agreement on the most effective methods of combined air attack, started out with different theories of bombing technique. Britain relied on what is known as “ saturation ” bombing, mainly by night; America, on “ precision ” bombing, mostly by day. Experience has pointed to radical changes in both methods, which, while the principle of neither has been abandoned, have been developed into a technique even more deadly and effective. Without subscribing to wanton attack on the civil population, it has come to be recognised that civilians operating war factories and capable of quickly restoring bomb damage are just as much in the front line of modern war as soldiers in the field. It is, for example, necessary in the bombing of submarine bases to concentrate on workshops, factories, and supply services, since the deep concrete shelters render the submarines themselves immune from aerial attack.

While it is recognised that bombing alone cannot win the war, it is none the less indispensable to victory. Germany’s war industries are grouped in about 50 major centres. If their destruction can be far advanced, the Nazis’ power to resist will be broken at its source. Raid.; even on the present large scale are insufficient, from this point of view; but as America’s huge bomber output is added to Britain’s and heavier concentration becomes possible, the “ softening ” of Germany will proceed apace. It has been estimated that the requirement to smash the German war effort sufficiently is about 100 bombing raids, delivering 200,000 tons of bombs. But a necessary preliminary to such operations is to drive the Axis from Africa. Whether thereafter the invasion of Europe will be conducted from Africa is problematical. In the transport of troops and supplies to southern France, Italy, or the Balkans from Africa, the Allies would in effect renew for themselves the problems of . long marine supply lines, which have everywhere strained their resources and multiplied their difficulties. But wher-

1 ever the blow is struck, its first I object must be the Luftwaffe, whose waning has been so clearly exposed in the recent stages of the African campaign. We must, as Mr Masefield says, “ turn our present general “ air superiority into complete air “mastery as a preparation for the “final combined sea, air, and land “thrust into Germany.” This will again involve constant air cooperation with-sea and land forces. There will have to be sufficient aircraft to tow the gliders of air-borne troops: a need which Allied production has unfortunately but unavoidably been slow to meet. Front-line troops must be sheltered and saved and assisted by aircraft. Landing and supply operations must be fully covered. If the second front in Europe is to be successfully opened and advanced, Hitler must be kept on the defensive and pressed till the defence collapses; and the full use of air power is the condition on which this success depends.