GREAT CHANGE

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 54, 1 September 1945, Page 8

GREAT CHANGE

FIGHTER AIRCRAFT

N.Z. ACE'S COMMENTS

The switch of the fighter aircraft from a defensive to an offensive role in aerial warfare was probably the most significant change the war had brought in this type of fighting, said Wing Commander Colin Gray, D.5.0., D.F.C. and two bars, New Zealand's top-scor-ing air ace, who was interviewed in Wellington on his • first visit to the city after more than six years' service in the R.A.F. He believed that the change would be a permanent one and that fighters would never again be the purely defensive weapon they started the war as, although this aspect of their work must still be retained as long as enemy aircraft were capable of operating. Fighter Command had been organised, and its aircraft designed, in the defensive role, said Wing Commander Gray, and the value of tne policy had proved itself beyond doubt in the days when Britain was on the defensive and menaced by German bomber attacks by day and night. In repelling these attacks, the Spitfire, specially designed for the job, proved its. worth in a manner which could not be disputed, and [still remained the best fighter the United Nations had ever had for this type of work.. When, however, the Anglo-American strategic bombing attack began to gain momentum, and particularly in the case of the Americans'" mass daylight raids, the need was soon apparent tor a completely different type of fighter. What was then needed was a heavily-armed machine which was also capable of escorting j bombers for distances which were beyond the capabilities of the Spitfire, even when fitted with a 90-gallon belly tank and even an additional tank in the fuselage behind the pilot. The Americans, who had designed their bomber force for just this purpose of I long daylight operations, also produced the ideal fighter escort aircraft for the job—the Mustang, which was capable of a round trip of 2000 miles, was heavily armed, and had a high speed. This fighter, however, was not possible of development without sacrifice, in exactly the same way that an aircraft carrier must sacrifice protective armour plate to achieve the speed which enables it to fulfil its work. In the case of the Mustang the main factor which had to go was manoeuvrability, and it was not a match in dog-fight scrambles' over enemy targets with the shorter-ranged but more manoeuvrable German fighters. Heavier armour, however, special tactics, and the not inconsiderable firepower of the bombers themselves adjusted the odds to a degree where the raids were economic on the basis of damage 'to the enemy compared with loss to the attackers. THE FLYING BOMBS. There was still a job for the Spitfires and other like aircraft to do. however, in the defence of England as well as close-support operations from forward bases after the invasion on Normandy. The fast Spitfires and the faster Tempests were the weapons used, again in the defensive role, against the buzz-bombs. Wing Commander Gray said that at times when pilots got on the trail of a flying bomb there were several aircraft, Spitfires, Tempests, and even Mustangs jostling each other to get at it, a state of affairs which, while exciting and competitive, had to be sternly controlled from the ground because the attention of several fighters to one missile might easily mean that another got by unnoticed. • The development of jet aircraft, which were used by Britain against the flying bomb and by the Germans as interceptors and high-speed divebombers, came too late in the war for i its full possibilities to be felt. Wing Commander Gray did not get the opportunity of flying one of these machines, but commented that because of their relatively slow acceleration they needed a much longer take-off than the normal fighter, although they were very fast in the air. Although he had heard of bombers using the jet principle for assisted take-offs, he had not seen any of this type, but believed that the jet principle would also be used on bombers in the future. The most important later role of fighter aircraft, he said, was that of close support for ground troops. The increasingly heavier punch of each new type of fighter aircraft, from .303 machine-guns of the first Hurricanes and Spitfires, the half-inch machineguns of the American fighters, and the increasingly heavy aircraft cannon and electrically-fired rockets, made fighters of inestimable value against small but heavily-protected defensive positions of tho enemy. British and American fighters ranging ahead of the armies wrought havoc among trains, transport, concentrations of enemy tanks, bridges, and pill-boxes with an intensity that increased as the German fighter force diminished. Nothing else was so effective as the blast of explosive from a low-flying fighter against small targets.