NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 44, 20 August 1941, Page 8

NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

GERMAN SILK

1,000, C ?ARACHUTES!

INVASION MENACE

That story about Germany ordering a million parachutes, for the aerial invasion of England, can be taken with a grain of salt. The cable message stated that all the silk mills in Germany have been ordered to drop unnecessary work and concentrate on the making of parachute silk; and that may be true; but it probably''only means that parachutes have been given priority. The same thing has been done in Britain and the United States and appears to be pending in Australia—hence the favourite domestic topic—no stockings. * ■ If an invasion of England ,is attempted, parachute troops will pre- ' sumably be used, and while foggy■ weather may help them, it will also handicap them, and will not protect them against attack in the air above the fog, nor assist them to find their allotted points of action. The only example so far of a parachute attack on a defended area, apart from what may have been done in Russia and not described, is the operation in Crete. The parachutists did not fare well there, in spite of totally inadequate defence, la England, the defence organisation is designed to deal with just this form of attack, which can only hope for success if it is made in great strength. It must be able to provide a landing force sufficient in numbers to overwhelm the defence organisation which is already on the spot or which can be assembled there before the invaders have established themselves firmly, with reinforcements landed directly on the ground. Big* Staff Problem. The important factor in air invasion is the limited number of aircraft which can be operated at one time. This number is measured in hundreds, not thousands. The limiting factors are, among others: the number of aircraft available; the number of fields from which they can take off; and the problem of controlling the operation before starting, in the air, and at the destinations. The largest number of aircraft the Germans could send over England in one day in the Battle of Britain, when they certainly made the greatest effort their organisation could handle, was about 500, sent over in two attacks with 250 in each. Since then, larger numbers have been used. For instance, the attack on Cologne on August 15 was made by 300 RJV.F. bombers, besides fighters; and in the 24-hour attack a week e"arlier a total of 800 machines were sent over the Channel. But there is as yet no evidence that, however many aircraft are available, operations by "thousands of machines" are yet practicable. - A troop-carrying aeroplane can carry 40 or 45 fully-equipped soldiers, that is, men who would be able to put up a fight the duration of which would ba limited by the "supplies they carried or could capture; but even a;thousand such aircraft could not construct on ■ the ground a compact army of 40,000 men, because they could not be assembled in a defended country, even if they could be landed. , It would be possible, no doubt, for a thousand big aeroplanes to carry .a million parachutes without men to use them, .'■,'...■ Smuts On Middle East. Of all the statesmen of the Empire Field-Marshal Smuts is by experience best qualified to speak on military matters. His observations'in Egypt, during a visit to the South African forces there, reported in the news this week, are therefore worth noting. He forecast that the Middle East and the Medi-' terranean would be the greatest battlefield of humanity, adding that he did not think it would be necessary for South Africans to serve outside Africa, where there was sufficient work for them. On his return home to Pretoria he said of the military situation in the Middle East: "We are up against a different proposition this time. We are not facing the Italians now;, The Germans have enormous resources to bring against us, but I am optimistic as to the outcome." The veteran of the East African campaign of 1916-18 has had experience of German military skill and resource which enabled the German commander in Tanganyika, yon Lettow-Vorbeck, to hold out till after the Armistice. General Smuts took over command from General; Smith-Dorrien at the beginning of 1916, when the German colony was still intact. It was a tough job for Smuts and his South Africans, for the German displayed the skill of a de Wet in escaping from their clutches again and again. Finally, after two years of hard fighting in the jungle yon Lettow-Vorbeck with his askaris was driven out of German territory into the Portuguese Mozambique colony, from which he made a'raid into Rhodesia, surrendering to General Edwards at Abercorn on November 28. 1918. As a token of respect for his resourcefulness he was permitted to retain his sword, and his men carried . their arms to Dar-es-Salaam, the former capital of a colony that was the last to pass out of German dominion. Lull That Will Not Last. There is good reason to believe that the great South African is right in his opinion. The Germans appear to be. well established in North Africa, and on the Egyptian frontier the position of the Italians and Germans has recent ly been strengthened by semi-perma-nent fortifications. These make the job of reconquering Cyrenaica—if that is deemed necessary—a "very different proposition," as Smuts put it, from the original campaign against the Italians. But the Middle East may be said also, without straining the definition too widely, to include the German operations in the southern Ukraine. Their progress is bound to exei-cise an influence on the altitude of Turkey and neighbouring countries. It may also affect the policy of Vichy and Spain in the Western Mediterranean, While winter (ends to slow down operations jyi "Europe-) it facilitates them in the warmer south round the Mediterranean and in North Africa. For this reason, the present lull in the Middle East can hardly be expected to last.