Evening Post TUESDAY, JUNE 9, 1942. THE DOMINANT ARM'

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 134, 9 June 1942, Page 4

Evening Post TUESDAY, JUNE 9, 1942. THE DOMINANT ARM'

While it is tor the General Staffs and the High Command, with their inner knowledge of events, to read and apply the lessons of experience in 'warfare, it must be clear, even to the most superficial observer, that air power is playing a more and more important part as time goes on. In 'the bitter struggle for the control of the land and the sea in this world war it will be found that air power has almost invariably decided the issue. From the conquest of Poland and Western Europe in the first year to the overrunning of the East Indies and south-east Asia in this third year, the belligerent with air superiority jhas had filings, with few exceptions, his own way. The chief exception was the Battle of Britain, where an air force inferior in numbers won the victory by sheer skill, and indomitable courage. But in the main, whether \ on sea or on land, it is the air arm that has turned the scale. Lord Trenchard, Marshal of the Royal Air Force and the pioneer of air warfare, has laid it down in his classic essay at the beginning of this year that

no major military or naval operation can hope to succeed in these days without adequate cover against enemy air action and effective support by our own striking air force. That surely is a lesson of this war that requires no eloquence to emphasise.

It stands greatly to the credit of the British High Command, including Mr. Churchill himself, that they have realised the importance of the air arm from the very start and have concentrated their main efforts, amid much criticism, on building up an air force that should be supreme. This meant not only the building of the maximum number of machines against the much superior Axis air force, with its long start, but also the provision of a big reservoir of trained personnel to man them. It is now clear what an almost miraculous creation of foresight the Empire Training Scheme was. British production of planes is now believed to be passing that of the Axis, and on top of that is the phenomenal output of the United States, now estimated at SQOO a month. Lord Halifax, British Ambassador in Washington, and Major-General Arnold, Chief of the U.S. Army Air Force, emphasise these points in addresses recorded in today's news. The air strength of the United Nations, according to Lord Halifax, is now beginning to soar far above that of the enemy and to make possible such shattering blows as Britain and America are dealing to Hitler and Hirohito. What has happened to the cities of northwestern Germany and of Japan, and to the warships of Japan, by air attack is only a foretaste of what is to come.

Air power has altered the role of both land and sea power. Land warfare has become two-dimensional and sea warfare three-dimensional. Just as it is idle to talk about control of the land without control of the air above it, so control of the sea implies control also of the air above and the depths beneath the surface. Yet no one arm can win a war alone. "No one weapon," says Lord Trenchard, "no single service, no specialised military method can win any war. . . . The art of war is to know how to weld all tactics into one whole, when to put the emphasis on one or another, how much of the nation's resources to allot to each and, as far as air power is concerned, to take full advantage of its flexibility to concentrate it in adequate strength at the place and on the task which is of decisive importance at the time. There is all die evidence now that the United Nations have both the strength and ability to carry out this I policy, and this the Axis Powers well realise. With them, as Major Arnold said, it is now or never. The next six months will spell victory or defeat. The Battle of Midway Island was a defeat, not a disaster,, for the Japanese, just as the Battle of Libya is a check, not a catastrophe, for Rommel. There are greater clashes to come, and just as the R.A.F. has helped to save the situation in Libya, and American naval aircraft have struck hard at the Japanese navy, so as the Allied air strength grows greater may it expect to play the dominant part in winning the final

victor