NAZI TACTICS AND AIR MORALE

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 50, 27 August 1940, Page 8

NAZI TACTICS AND AIR MORALE

From evidence on all hands it is becoming increasingly clear that the change in Nazi air tactics over Britain means that Germany is resorting to indiscriminate, haphazard bombing regardless of military objectives. While air attacks in mass formation are still being delivered here and there with varying results, there is much more of the "lone-raider" type of foray, where the raider—singly or in little groups — flies high and drops bombs wherever there is any sign of a centre of population, large or small, underneath. At such a height it is impossible to aim bombs accurately at any specific target, and the attack is of a hit-or« miss character—no matter what is hit —and also "hit-and-run." Such tactics, as pointed out by an expert commentator in a broadcast last night, are bound to prove harassing ;to the civil population, but they are much less hampering to Britain's war effort than when genuinely military objectives are assailed. The idea may be to break down the morale of the civilian population, but, if so, the Nazis fail to understand the spirit of the British people. As an American observer put it, the British only grow more stubborn under such conditions.

More important from the technical aspect of air warfare is the unmistakable evidence that these new tactics of the enemy are signs of a decline in the morale of the German air force. The first phase of the Nazi air offensive was definitely planned to achieve certain objects of a military nature. Its disastrous failure proved such a shock to the morale of the enemy's air personnel that they were unable to proceed with the attack on thosfe lines. A lull followed, attributed by Nazi headquarters to bad weather, which, however, was not such as to affect the flying of the R.A.F. over Germany and Italy. Really, the lull was necessary to give the Nazi airmen time to recover. The new tactics make the job easier for them. They simply fly over Britain and drop their bombs and then get away again as quickly as they can. Obviously #hey are not such easy targets for the British fighters as they were in massed formation. More of them, therefore, axe likely to escape, though a loss of over fifty machines a day on the .average, with their crews, is quite a satisfactory bag for the R.A.F. An example of this aimless kind of flying on the part of the Germans is the otherwise inexplicable raid on County Wexford in Eire, and the killing of citizens, including women, of a neutral country.

Meanwhile, the R.A.F. extends its methodical raids further and further over enemy territory. Berlin, and even Leipzig, have come under attack. This should be a reminder to the German people that nowhere are they immune; but the British are not likely ?to be diverted from their steady, systematic destruction of the bases of the German war machine to targets easier, but less conducive to victory. ,