NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 25, 29 July 1942, Page 4

NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

AIR OFFENSIVE

INTERIM SECOND FRONT?

While the Russian situation shows no improvement after the fall of Rostov and Novo Cherkask and the crossing of the Don at Tsimlyansk, British counter-action, according to Air Marshal Harris, Chief of the Bomber Command of the R.A.F., in a broadcast,■'will take the form of a continuous air offensive over Germany, "scourging the" land from end to end." The Egyptian front is again quiet after the "limited offensive" undertaken by the Eighth Army. Enemy minefields and anti-tank defences proved the main obstacles, - but heavy casualties were inflicted on Axis infantry. .

Air Marshal Harris's warning to Germany of an Anglo-American air offen* sive over the Reich, exceeding by far anything yet experienced by. the Germans, is based on the vastly increased Allied production of heavy bombers. He spoke of one American factory alone turning out every two hours a four-engined bomber capable of carrying four tons of bombs to any part of Germany. This is probably the new Ford factory at Willowbank, Detroit, now in the mounting flood of mass production, and destined to reach before the end of the summer the rate of one bomber an hour. There are other factories in the United States whose aggregate output should reach or surpass that figure. The Willowbank works is building Liberator-type bombers, remarkable for their long range and high carrying capacity. The Boeing "Fortresses" are being manufactured by a combination of firms with factories all over the Middle and Western States. Cbe of the characteristics of the Boeing is.its high ceiling —over 30,000 feet—and its powerful armament and effective protection for the crew. "Fortresses" have on several occasions fought off enemy fighters with success and reached home. Notable British heavy bombers are the Avro Lancasters, the Handley Page Halifaxes, and the Short Stirlihgs. These took pant in the bombings of Cologne and the Kuhr in early June, without the assistance of American machines.

To Keep It Going:.

The essence of a successful air offensive is to keep it up. That is the whole question. There was an interval both before and after the CologneRuhr thousand-plane raids, and it is still doubtful whether raids on such a scale can be kept up. Mr. Churchill, warned some weeks ago against such an assumption. Subsequent raids, on Duisburg; Bremen, Emden, and, lastly, Hamburg have been on a smaller scale, fmt still heavier than anything the, Germans achieved over Britain in the blitz of 1940-41. In the thousand bomber raid on Cologne the R.A.F. lost 44 machines, and in the second, great raid, .on Essen, 35. How .many of the. machines lost were heavy, and how many medium bombers has never been stated. The policy today seems to be, heavy raids at night,> such as those on Hamburg and Duisburg, and daylight raiding >y small groups and- single machines. The losses seem to average out at under 5 per cent, of the machines employed. . :

Effect on War.

Discussing the continuous air offensive in June Hanson Baldwin, in- trie "NeW York Times," says that an off en-;, sive growing in scope and magnitude should have great, influence on the course of the war. He continues: The efficacy of the attacks wilLde•pend on the ability- of the United Nations to augment them and to keep them going to beat. through what are likely to be increasingly effective German defences, to accept losses, toreplace those losses, and to supply the great armadas of the Royal Air Force and eventually of the United States, with the vast quantities of petrol, bombs, ammunition, and supplies required. The continuous large-scale bombing of Germany on the-Cologne and Essen scale—and that is the only kind of bombing that will have major effect—requires for success not only, the most careful planning and. finely articulated staff work,, but al«Mhe solution of what is and will .be, a supply problem of major magnitude. Stepping It Up. The immediate goal, says' this com* mentator, .is to step up the raids toy, night and by day until 30,000 planes a month are attacking Germany and : German-occupied • country. . Not! all of these will be bombers, less stall heavy bombers; there will always be a big proportion of fighters-for cross* Channel operations, a regular feature today. The test will be the capacity to keep it up. In addition to losses due to enemy action—combat losses--there will be other losses by accident, as well as machines damaged and needing repair. The total losses from all causes are estimated at 10 per cent., which will mean considerable replacements. These will come in time from increased British and. American production. The personnel is at present more than equal to the number of planes available, but when production of machines approaches its peak, there will be a heavy call on trainees.. That is why the Americans are making a special call on West Point cadets and others to join the air force.

Question of Distance. The question of distance from the bases in Britain is solved by the longrange bomber which, however, will heed protection at this time of the year over the daylight portions of the out-and-home flight. Targets within a 500-mile radius are accessible to the medium bomber and to. the heavy bomber any part of the Reich is within reach. But there is always the proviso that the greater the distance, the greater the risk and the less the load of bombs. Parts of Poland and Eastern Germany could be better bombed from Russia than from Britain, or.bombers might run a "shuttle" service right across the Reich. A toousand-nule radius from, say, Southampton, would reach the whole of the Spanish, peninsula, including Gibraltar, the fringe of French North Africa, Italy as far as Naples, Yugoslavia nearly as far as Belgrade, and Poland beyond Warsaw. From the North of Scotland the same radius would cover the whole of Scandinavia and almost reach Leningrad