WEIGHT OF AIR POWER

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 68, 18 September 1944, Page 4

WEIGHT OF AIR POWER

EARLIEST USE POSSIBLE NEW YORK, September 16. "The production of super-bombers and the development of the superbomber bases are gaining momentum, and the army air forces have already completed plans to make the Japanese feel the full weight of air power on a scale beyond anything they have imagined," said Lieutenant-General Giles, deputy commander of the United States Army Air Forces, at a Press conference. He added that no complications were expected in shifting the vast aerial operations from the European theatre to the Pacific. "The Far Eastern operations will be enormously stepped up after the defeat of Germany," he said. "We will have vast air power in being which we mean to deploy as soon as possible against Japan. You have seen the strides that have been made towards the Japanese home islands by softening up and seizing Japanese-held positions, establishing our own airfields, and at the same time reaching out hundreds more miles."

t General Giles revealed that between 1 June 6 and September 11 the American l air force in Europe had lost 2870 airs craft and 10,284 men killed and missing 1 in combat, t According to the New York "Herald

Tribune," the general hinted that Japan may feel the effects of robot planes better than the flying bombs used against London. He declared: "We consider this a most important weapon of the future," but declined to comment any further.