ADVANTAGE TO R.A.F.

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 50, 27 August 1940, Page 9

ADVANTAGE TO R.A.F.

AIR OPERATIONS

SHARP REVERSE FOR GERMANY

HEAVY LOSSES

A CHANGE IN TECHNIQUE

(Official Wireless and tT.P.A.)

(Received August 27, 1 p.m.) LONDON, August 26

An authoritative survey of the past few weeks of air operations stresses the advantage gained by the R.A.F. both at home and abroad. High officials speak with confidence, but there is no disposition to underrate the power of the German air force to hit harder than it has yet done and to continue hitting hard for a considerable time, if that is the policy of Hitler and the German Command. Nevertheless, the German air force undoubtedly met a very sharp reverse at an early stage of the large-scale operations against Britain. Enemy air losses have been much higher than Hitler could have expected, and at the same time the R.A.F. has been damaging the industrial war potential of Germany a great deal more than the Germans have been able to damage Britain's.

The general trend of the enemy's prewar training was specialised day flying. Not so with the R.A.F. On the outbreak of the war the R.A.F. further increased its lead in this respect by the experience gained by leaflet raids. It now appears that the enemy is turning towards night attack. His meagre successes seem to reflect the tardy adoption of night-flying technique. Now the enemy is attacking by night, he appears to have' selected targets involving air potential for attacks, but he does not seem to have located the targets exactly and his bombing has been surprisingly inaccurate. When the German night raiders over Britain cannot find their targets, they seem to be content to drop bombs anywhere, hoping to create panic. It would not cause surprise here,, given the relative failure of the tactics so far employed against Britain in the air, if there were an increase in sporadic, rather aimless night raiding in ' the hope of adversely affecting the public morale. Even very heavy mass day attacks on Fighter Command aerodromes have proved much less effective than the Germans must have hoped. Such damage as has been done has, for practical purposes, been repaired within quite a short time. Large-scale raiding by the R.A.F. has noticeably reduced the German production of aircraft and seriously affected its transportation to vital areas. Information from Germany proves that the morale of the people in areas subjected to bombings has been considerably lowered.

R.A.F. reconnaissance planes have discovered that German fighter and bomber aerodromes are now strung out from Norway, through Denmark, and Holland, to well down the French coast. These have largely replaced the old aerodromes inside Germany, but have not yet reached full efficiency, because of damage to communications between Germany and the new bases.

It is emphasised that the German air force has not yet struck with the force of which it is known to be capable. German night raids are expected to be intensified, but everything indicates that night bombing so far has been extraordinarily purposeless, contrasting with the carefully-planned attacks on military objectives by the R.A.F.