A BACKGROUND OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 9, 5 October 1940, Page 10

A BACKGROUND OF THE WAR

Germany Prepares New Planes

BRITISH DESIGNERS ALSO BUSY

Behind the fierce aerial combats which are now a daily affair in the skies over and round Britain, there is being waged just as keenly the silent warfare in the designers’ offices as Germany strives to overtake Britain's lend iu aircraft quality and the British designers concentrate on keeping a step ahead. A British Official Wireless message published yesterday described how carefully German planes, captured almost intact, are examined to find out what now ideas the enemy may be adopting. There seems to be general agreement among English aviation writers that both countries are busy with designs for new types of aircraft. Recently the air correspondent of the “Sunday Tinies,” after mentioning that the new Heinkel 113 lighter, designed.to combat the superiority of the Hurricanes and Spitfires, did not appear to have come near to achieving this object, remarked that within the next few months it was to be expected that new German types would be seen in service. More .than a year had elapsed since any striking advance in technical equipment had gone into the squadrons of the Luftwaffe, but. it waS known that German designers had not been idle. Radically New Type

Already there bad been one report of a new Foeke-Wulf. This was a radically new type of single-seater fighter with the engine placed behind the pilot, which gave him a wonderful view, but was left unprotected in front. The top sjieed is reputed to be 368 miles an hour and the armament four ma-chine-guns and two cannon. This machine, says the writer, is known to have been beset with one or two serious “teething troubles,” and he thinks it need not cause any apprehension to our fighter pilots. C. G. Grey, in the “Sphere,’’ also has something to say about this machine and links reports of its production with the several raids made by the R.A.F. on the Foeke-Wulf factory in Bremen. He describes the new plane as a very fast little pusher monoplane —an aeroplane which has the engine behind it driving a propeller airscrew, which is much more efficient than the tractor screw now in universal use. Designed In Holland

The machine, be says, was designed in Holland, will be fitted with one oi the new Daimler-Benz 1500 horse-power motors, and carry anything up to about eight guns arranged round the “pulpit in which the pilot will sit in front of the motor. He thinks it may be dangerous, but predicts that when it appears it will meet newer types ish fighters and so will not be like*} to repeat in this war the success which the Fokker monoplane won over British machines when it first came on the scene in the last war. Other Types

But the Foeke-Wulf fighfer, says the “Sunday Times” correspondent, is not rhe only new fighter Germany is known to have in production.. Dr. Ernst Heinkel, always an original, thinker, has been working for some time on a two-seat, two-motor, all-wing, longrange fighter and a new four-motor .bomber. The Dornier combine also have a new four-motor bomber and a •little two-motor "attack bomber,” the D 029, probably intended chiefly for ground strafing. Professor Messeisschmitt has designed the Me Ila to replace his noMoo-suceessful Mo ivJ. Its success seems doubtful, as it is believed to have a bigger engine and a smaller wing. One-Bomb Bomber

Finally, the Henschel company, now makiiw "Dornier 215 s under licence, is known to have a new advanced type of long-range two-motor dive bomber, which is believed to have been in action already. It is said to be designed to carry only one big bomb, weighing about a ton, with the obvious polw of chancing everything on one direct pp—a bomb which admits of no argument. , , . . „„„ This commentator concludes his survey bv saying that, though it would be foolish for British people to shut their eyes to these advances in German (technical equipment, the new machines could not be in service iu quality for some time. When that time came, Britain’s new types, yet to be made officially known, were likely to maintain and enhance that technical superiority which bad been such a feature of the war to date. And all the time British production was steadily growing. General De Gaulle

Forty-nine years old, and the son of a professor at a French Catholic college, de Gaulle has bad an unusually wide military experience, ■ wrote G. Ward Price recently. He began as an infantry officer, serving as a subaltern in a regiment commanded, oddly enough, by Marshal Petain, then a colonel. In the last war he was wounded three times, on the third occasion at Verdun, where he was picked up by a German patrol. Five times he tried to escape from the prisoner-of-war camp in which he was confined. After the Armistice, though suit suffering from bis latest, wound,, be returned to the army and s- - under the direct orders of General Wevgand when he took command o the* Polish Army that successfffily resisted the Bolshevist invasion of 19-1. Besides being employed on the stair, and commanding first an infantry ba - talion, then a regiment, a bngade and finallv a division of tank*?. he ha., travelled widely in rhe Near and Middle East. His books on mechanized warfare, disastrously neglected in his own country, were studied with the closest attention by (lie German Army. A keen horseman and good player of tennis and bridge, as well as a recognized authority on tank strategy and tactics, General de Gaulle represents the best type of French officer. He is a worthy leader of the campaign of Free Fi-enchraen to restore his historic country’s traditions of.liberty and victory. Kaiser’s Grandson

Prince Frederick of Prussia, 29-year-old grandson of the Kaiser, has boon in internment, since last April. This fact, was revealed in an interview by Mr. Henry Channou, M.P., witli whom the Prince stayed at his Essex home. Mr. Channou added that he believed the prince had gone to the Isle of Man.

Buckets Of Savings A young farm labourer who heard a War Savings appeal in u Chelmsford, Essex, cinema returned with three buckets containing £7O in coins of all denominations. Witli these he bought national savings certificates for his grandparents, who had saved the coins over several years.