The Press FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1945. The Fleet Air Arm

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24743, 7 December 1945, Page 4

The Press FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1945. The Fleet Air Arm

New Zealanders have good reason' to be interested in the British air-craft-carrier, H.M.S. Indefatigable, now in New Zealand waters, and in the carrier's aircraft, a small number of which visited Christchurch this week. These are the weapons of a comparatively new kind of war. Several nations had planned and prepared for it for many years; and Australia and New Zealand are fortunate that Britain and the United States, ..especially the latter, had foreseen the decisive part that carrier-borne aircraft might play. Carriers and their aircraft—American, not British—saved New Zealand from invasion in 1942. The great sea-air battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, which halted the southward advance of the Japanese, were the turning point of the Pacific war. In those battles the technical excellence and advanced design of American sea-borne aircraft, together with the resolution of the aircrews, enabled an enemy of greatly superior strength to be soundly defeated. The Battle of Britain was being fought again, by an ally, on the other side of the world. British naval and air authorities have not hesitated to admit that, at the outbreak of war, the Royal Navy lagged behind the United States, and probably Japan, in the development of naval aircraft. The Fleet Air Arm did magnificent work in the early war years, but did. it with obsolescent aeroplanes. At the'outbreak of war in 1939 the Royal Navy had no carrier aircraft comparable in effectiveness with the Spitfires and Hurricanes which defended Britain from land bases or with the Wellington bomber which first carried the war to Germany. The aircraft which eventually made the Fleet Air Arm into a great striking force had either to be adapted from successful land-based types or imported from' the United States. The Hurricane was. the first to be adapted to carrier work; then came the Seafire,' a Spitfire with arrester gear and folding wings. The Fleet Air Arm took into its arsenal the specialised aircraft developed for carrier work in the United States, the Wildcat, Hellcat, and Corsair fighters and the very successful Avenger torpedo-bomber. Later the British aircraft industry found breathing space in which to develop its own specialised carrier aircraft, including the Barracuda torpedobomber and the Firefly reconnaissance fighter. Vice-Admiral Sir Philip Vian in a recent radio address said that nearly 10, per cent, of the' pilots of the Fleet Air Arm were New Zealanders. In their task, one of the most hazardous of the war, they earned high distinction. The people of the Dominion will be glad of this opportunity. and of future oj(portunities to see the aircraft they used with equal skill and valour and the ships from whose decks they flew.