BRITAIN’S 1939 DEFENCES

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27132, 31 August 1953, Page 13

BRITAIN’S 1939 DEFENCES

Effect Of Munich In Reducing Odds

STATEMENT BY WAR TIME AIR LEADER (Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) London, August 27. At the time of Munich Britain had only two or three squadrons of Hurricanes, no more than six Spitfires (one flight), hardly any bombers fit for European warfare, and no radar station in working! order. By May, 1940, all the Royal Air Force squadrons were equipped with up-to-date fighters, a vital chain of twenty radar stations was complete, and the whole of Fighter Command was trained to use the new technique. There was also a small but growing force of battle-worthy bombers. These “little-appreciated” facts form part of the argument made by Air Marshal. Sir Robert Saundby, DeputyAir Officer Commanding Bomber Command in 1943-45, in summing up newspaper correspondence on the value of “buying of time” for which Mr Neville Chamberlain was responsible as a result of Munich. Sir Robert Saundby criticised those who claimed that the material results of postponing the war for one year were not altogether favourable to Britain, inasmuch as Germany’s fighting potenyal was increasing more rapidly than Britain’s at that time, and the Luftwaffe might have benefited more than the Royal Air Force. “This fallacious argument appears in print again and again, and it really is time the true position was generally appreciated,” he said. “In fact, German and British production of aircraft from Munich to the invasion of France 18 months later were roughly equal. “It is, however, absurd to argue from this we gained nothing from the delay. At the time of Munich German strength, in modern aircraft could fairly be represented by 3x, and ours by lx. “If, in the interval, we each added lx then, by the time we were called upon to fight, the relative strengths would be 4x and 2x, and the odds against us would have dropped from 3 to 1 to 2 to 1.

“Whatever figures of the relative strength at Munich are taken, an equivalent production by both sides during the interval must have the effect of reducing the odds against us. “We just managed to win the Battle of Britain in the late summer of 1940. In my view we would not have had a faintest hope of victory had we been called upon to fight in September, 1938. “Never in my life have I experienced anything like the sense of relief which I felt when Mr Chamberlain returned from Munich, and I shall never cease to regard him as the man who saved us from disaster.”