NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 78, 28 September 1940, Page 12

NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

BIG LOSSES IN AIR

THE GERMANS SUFFER

FACTORS IN WARFARE

The beating which the Ger* man Air Force took over Britain. yesterday ranks as its second biggest this month, at the time of writing, and is one of the. worst maulings it has received in the assault on the British Isles. The record number cf planes shot down, as estimated by .the conservative British raeihods, has ■ been the 185 which were, de* stroyed on September 15 r . But this number has been greatly increased—by. about 50—as..the result of later reports, according to a statement made a- day. or two ago by Air Marshal Barrett. ) List of Losses. Other • big bags were on • August 15 when the Nazis lost 180 planes and August 18 when they lost 144. • Losses during the present month are giverj in the following list of official figures:-*

Air Personnel. •.-■•' ' Scanning this list it is obvious thaj even with these, losses Germany i| not using up her aircraft production of 2000 planes a month or over. Bui it is also clear- that there may be a* serious shortage of personnel, not fa* away, at a time when the British Enw pire air scheme will: be yielding re* cruits in abundance. Going back td the available information before the war we find that the Germans at thai time claimed to have 4000 first-clasS fighters (a large number of them, such as the Messerschmitt 109's, proved any* thing but that), 1000 reconnaissance bombers, 3000 twin-engined bombers,, and about 3000 commercial machines* But just before the war began mill* tary observers in Germany estimated that the nation had only 6000 fullytrained military airmen. They had at least 13,000 more in various stages of training for air service, and were rushing them through the courses with the intention of placing them in operational squadrons,- which they did m the push on the Western Front. Shortages Seen. There have been various indication^ of shortage of really trained person? nel, and some of them have been given, in the ■ last few weeks. One is thqi comparatively small .scale on which at> tacks on Britain have been attempted as compared with Nazi threats and the confident way the large-scale raids were begun last month. Another is the fact that the night raiders over! London have been, all things cpnsidj* ered, few. This is not due to the defences; If the Germans had the crews for night raiding they would have* used them 4on a larger scale. Today the German air force is esu* mated by neutral observers in Germany to be able to draw upon the Hit; ler Youth organisation, of about 100,000 youngsters, but all of these would not be suitable for air crews, and, if they are being drafted into the, service irrespective of their education^ the inferiority of the German airrae# may be explained. In this country, ag we know, a definite minimum stand* ard of education is demanded, and tlje. standard is high. The United States, also, asks that men of. air crews shall have received two years' college education (that is, have gone to a school), and it is only by setting such standards that men for the complex job of navigating, for example, can toe found. ' ' - Not So Numerous. In sum, it may be said that the avai^ able number of men for really firs£ rate work with the air force is pro* bably not so great in Germany as the size of the population might lead one to believe, and that the better-educated men from the British overseas Empire, with their attendance at school where real education does not have to Of curtailed in the interests of Nazi doq^ trine, will furnish a much higher per| centage of airmen than Hitlers regi* mented people. . . In other ways the German scheme would impose its own difficuaa ties. Long before the war Marshal Goering had to make a radio, address denying the rumours in Germany that men were dying like flies on the transf ing fields of the air force. That stor^fc though exaggerated, is recognised « fundamentally true. There have bee& severe losses of personnel and 0| material, and probably the German ai» craft factories have to provide a muck greater proportion of their output ,t& keep the flying schools supplied thaa the British do. Also, the imperfectly trained product of : those schools £ reckless in the handling of his maching and thei-e are many crashes during operations. -*i Becoming Harder. 1 The task of the German air force M becoming harder, too, as it is .npjf fairly generally recognised that Brita|nS has virtually, as many fighters as the enemy and is using them on a greatest scale than ever before. Actually, feat all the German claims to the contrary what is happening in Britain today is a repetition of what happened at Dun? kirk. At that fateful port, for a short time, the ■ Royal Air Force established] command of the air. That is the real reason for the success of the evacuation at Dunkirk. . The mystery of the operations, of course, is that the Nazis did not throw in the whole of theijj air force against Britain, but they an* parently had other plans which they; wanted to push ahead.

Planes lost. ' British Sept. German. British. pilots safa 1 25 15 • ■ 9 2 55 20 12 3 25 15 . S ' 4 54 1" 12 5 39 20 ■■•• 9 6 ......... 46 19 "■■ 12 T 103 22 9 S '. 11 3 1 9 ........ 52 13 6 10 ........ 2 0 • • - 0 11 S9-. 24 7 12 3 . 0 . 0 13 2 .0 0 24 8 4 2 25 ........ 26 ' ■ 4 I 26 34 8 &