Evening Post TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1942. VICTORY ON LAND AND SEA

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 120, 17 November 1942, Page 4

Evening Post TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1942. VICTORY ON LAND AND SEA

The land-based aeroplane has become a formidable factor in the Mediterranean Sea, in the Solomons, and in any other theatre of war where land and sea blend in such a manner as to give the land-based aeroplane an effective range, maritime as well as terrestrial. One of the greatest things that a modern army can dp is to deprive the enemy, by land action, of an aerodrome located and equipped for successful longrange air action. In the Solomons a handful of marines seized an airfield from which the Japanese seacraft and aircraft have been repeatedly stung; the measure of this stinging may be found in the degree of loss the Japanese have suffered in their attempts to recapture this airfield by land action on Guadalcanal and also (at night) by naval action. Naval enemies■ may counter each other by means of sea-carried aeroplanes, but np naval commander willingly comes under the air umbrella of hostile land-based aeroplanes unless the stake is a big one, as in the case of Algeria and, the race for Tunis. - One of the most important prizes—though not the only p r i ze —for which the British and the Americans are striving in that race is air mastery based on Tunisian aerodromes and airfields, v which have been idle in French hands, but which, now assume extreme importance. ; In the other (eastern) end of the Mediterranean the Eighth Army is also busy acquiring those precious pieces of land from which all types of aeroplane can dominate earth and sea. A broadcast today states the case so tersely that we quote it somewhat extensively:

In Libya, the' British Eighth Army's capture of the airfields at Martuba means that the eastern Mediterranean will be made safer for Allied shipping. These airfields are about 25 miles on from -Tmimi, whose capture was announced yesterday. Besides being another milestone in the Eighth Army's victorious record, the capture of the Martuba airfields will have a definite effect in the.:battle for the Mediterranean life-line/ The capture of the airfields means that the danger to our ships from the so-called eastern "bomb alley" hardly exists any more. Our planes from the airfield, instead of the enemy's* can now dominate the narrows lying between Cyrenaica and the south-west corner of Crete. Until now our ships have not been able to pass through \ here without the risk of destruction from enemy air attacks. In fact, fighter protection is now possible for our ships almost anywhere in the eastern Mediterranean. The defence and supply of Malta have become much easier, and on the offensive side, the future of Italy, from the point of view of air attacks, looks grim indeed.

The Mediterranean Sea may be said to have two waists —the narrows (mentioned above) between Cyrenaica and the south-west corner of Crete, and the narrower waist between Tunis on the south side and Sicily and Sardinia on east and north. Montgomery's Eighth Army is winning the land-keys to air mastery over the former waist, and Anderson's First Army aims to do the same thing in Tunis, an<jl thus to turn the tables on Pantelldria, Sicily, and Sardinia. If the enemy can be driven from these two "bomb alleys," the Mediterranean route can be reopened, and can replace to a "large extent the immensely longer sea route round the Cape of Good Hope. Reopening of the Mediterranean to shipping thus means, in effect, multiplying Allied ships—a big step towards victory in the fight with the U-boats, which fight is still the most critical point of our war. < A Mediterranean campaign fought in terms of air power as well as of sea power and land power is a thing new to history. Nothing like it occurred in the last war. What part the land-based aeroplane played in the "smashing naval victory" in the Solomons—news of which is flashed from America as we write—cannot yet be conjectured. But if the Japanese fleet did not come under an air umbrella, it certainly must have run into something pretty solid in order to lose a battleship, three heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, five destroyers, eight transports, and four cargo transports. These twenty-three ships are all reported definitely sunk or destroyed; the personnel losses, with the transports, must be extremely heavy. Moreover, there is a "damaged" list comprising one Japanese battleship and six destroyers; and damage, so far from Japanese bases, is a factor of extreme seriousness, especially in the case of the battleship. Against this disastrous total of enemy losses, Washington admits the loss of two light cruisers and six destroyers. The Japanese flejet, unable after four days' fighting to stand up to such a loss rate, ■ has retired, and thus another attempt —the greatest yet made—to recapture the southern Solomons ends in ruinous failure. Germany regrets the day that brought Rommel to the gates of Egypt, and Japan now sees that she was not lucky when she added the Solomon Islands to her great adventure. Both Germany and Japan now bleed in their extremities, and the time is coming when they will draw in their tentacles and conserve their forces in order to resist blows aimed at the very heart of their empires.