BIG U.S. AIR FORCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 96, 24 April 1942, Page 5

BIG U.S. AIR FORCE

BUILDING IN BRITAIN

THREAT TO THE CONTINENT

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyricht.) WASHINGTON, April 23.

A formidable American air force is being built in Britain, and soon it will be adding tremendous weight to the Royal Air Force's blitz on Germany and the occupied countries.

Forecasting these developments, the "Christian Science Monitor" says that the attacks will surpass any which have previously been undertaken by the United States Air Force, arid they may be regarded as a prelude to an invasion of the Continent by the land forces which are now being trained in Britain and America.

It is understood that the Americans will be under the direction of the British Bomber Command.

The "Monitor" advances several reasons for an American air offensive from British soil. The Army General Staff, it says, has taken literally President Roosevelt's declaration that the United States will seek out the enemy and hit him wherever he is found. The nature of America's defence problems has always resulted in emphasis on long-range bombing training for American airmen.

The British, it is stated, are anxious to receive American air reinforcements so as to enable more R.A.F. units to go to the Middle East. It- is felt that the increased strafing of German industry, especially the shipbuilding industry in north-west Germany, will reduce the construction of submarines and thus ease the strain on Allied shipping.

The "Monitor" concludes: "The visit to London by General Marshall and all that it implies has already caused the Germans to shift troops and aircraft from southern, central, and southeastern Europe to Norway, France, and the Low Countries after the R.A.F. raids had forced them to shift industries from western Germany to the east."