AIR AND LIFE

Evening Star, Issue 22070, 2 July 1935, Page 11

AIR AND LIFE

WINGS OVER THE WORLD National courage no longer falters for want of a weapon, ft is a grim realisation that, if it falters at all, it falters rather for lack of quantity (says the ‘Sydney Morning Herald’). The essence of the decision of the British Government to expand the Royal Air Force so that, within■ 18 months, Britain will have 1,500 front-line fighting machines is that there is no use in blinking this fact, any more than there is in refusing to acknowledge that dt* tack in the air has outrun defence. The public mind is not yet fully alite to the new air situation as the British Calm net sees it to-day from an Imperial point of view; neither is it aware that the relative progress of invention has been all in favour of the overhead service, Worst still, tile people of the Empire are not aware that, though '■more than £llo.ooo.ooo—that is to say. more than £2,000,000 a week, and more than £2OO a minute—is being spent today on the three services, the strength of each is such that it Would seem, ' were the situation permitted to continue, that wo were prepared to stake the rerv existence of the Empire on an optimistic gamble amidst a world which is not growing any less dangerous. These reasons precisely emphasised the urgency of action to the British netSo tar as the Empire is concerned, the Navy and the Air Force, in the .most vital sense, are complementary and mutually indispensable. As necessary to Britain as ever it WAS'is the Navy itself, but no longer can it alone do the work it used to do for Britain and the Empire. Alone it can no longer defend its awn bases, nor can it defend seaborne supplies from being sunk by the over-seeing and over-riding arm. Together only can the two great services accomplish this mighty task. That the whole scheme of Air Force expansion is one important to the Empire generally must bo clear. The age has gone when one. Government could give polite notice of its ihtentloh to strike at another’s throat. AS Marshal Petain warned French reservist officers the other day: “The next war will burst like a flash of lightniiiE. 1 ' AIR STRENGTH OF POWERS. Not only On this matter are the British and French Governments in complete agreement; distinguished British soldiers support the considered conclu-sion-of Marshal Retain. Brigadier-gene-ral P. R. C. Groves, for several years before his recent retirement Britain’s air expert at Geneva, speaking with cumulative impressiveness, has said that for London to-day, and, therefore, for the Empire, there could come what he called “ the knockout blow from the sky.” Another famous soldier, Sir Ernest Swinton, has declared that air poWer in other countries points that there is urgent need for a re-orientation of our defensive system and for an increase in or a logical reallocation of, our defence expenditure. It is a sorry tale that, in spite, of the fact that we have been spending at tlft rate of more than £2OO a minute, night and day, on preparation for possible attack, the new and decisive arm which has revolutionised former conditions of defence should have been so neglected that not only has Britain dropped to sixth place in the list of grefet air Powers, but she has undoubtedly made herself more vulnerable than she was in 1914. Nothing has contributed itiorcs to this state of affairs thafi the fftdt tbit, iil M «ir Age, merely 16 per cent, of the aggregate expenditure on the Empire’s fighting forties has been devoted td the flying arm. That this ludicrous archaic allocation could frustrate the whole expenditure, more than half of which is spent on the Navy, is a striking fact, which, at l&st, has been seized Upon. EvOn now, after the historic Berlin meetings, and Herr Hitler’s speech, there is a veil hiding the exact strength of Germany’s military air force, hut HexT Hitler himself has admitted that it i 8 equal to Britain’s. France is twice as strong in military air power. Italy § force outnumbers Britain’s, and m relation to the Miditerranean, Italy is superior to an unprecedented degree. Soviet Russia has an air army as strong as France, and. like the United States, which is far ahead of Britain, la multiplying her fighting snuadrons with remarkable rapidity, Japan’s air force figures are difficult to estimate with any accuracy, hut she is committed to a programiae of air gxpgnsipn, which, m .

is is believed, will go far beyond Britain’s. ... „ r , . Increasingly, within the Empire, airmen will become the emblem ol trained, national strength, for m a crisis the Air Force will depend upon the civilian air fleets as surely as the navy depends upon the mercantile marine. No power on earth, if treaties are not signed, or conventions arc allowed to prove abortive, can protect civil populations from air aggression in the future. Only afa adequate defensive air power will do that. Nothing is more certain than that a great air armada could inflict appalling damage upon England to-day. Carping critics (none blinder!) will protest xhat little damage was done to London during the Great War. True; equally, trim is it that no bombs were dropped on London after May, 1918, although at that time Germany had a considerable air fleet. But it is also true that at no time during the war was England attacked by more than between 40 artd 50 planes. Yet for each of these invading machines 10 defenders had to he kept in readiness. London alone was defended in 1918 by 414 aeroplanes, 480 guns, 700 searchlights, 15,000 men, and a vast ground organisation. To multiply these figures bv the difference between the number of invaders in 1918 and the European bombing fleets of to-day, bearing in mind the enormous improvements in speed and power, is to see that a Comparable force for London alone would to-day amount td A glieat Arnly. Air parity in the abstract has beert an accepted principle in Britain for years. It is a principle which the British Cabinet intends now. as never before, to apply. It means to create air parity independently of all, other factors and chances. A WESTERN AIR PACT. Yet the decision, sane and long delayed, is not a signal t for a mad plunge into a great international race for the greater production of units for an overhead forc‘e, Which can look dbwh on towns and rock them with bombs, filling streets with gas; or on Warships and other ships, nhcl send them to the bottom of the sea. On the cdutrary. An aerially strong Britain is a firmer power for peace, particularly if it is known that "she is aerially formidable. Because of this, efforts on the part of Britain to start immediately With negotiations for an air pact for Western Europe most likely will be encouraged by Western European Powers themselves. Chances of a successful air contention turn on whether internationalisation can be obtained, or at least an effective system of control. Hardly a single'important European Power has not agreed to this step during the past three year's. Britain, France, Poland, Holland, Spain, Czechoslovakia, the Scandinavian countries, and Turkey, even Germany, have all informed the Air Commission that they would accept a system of internationalisation, if audit a system was necessary to make complete air disarmament possible. Geheva these proposals have received considerable support, hilt they failed, invariably, because solhe Governments did not press them to a conclusion, but, Instead, laid down obstructive conditions. Clearly, a full scheme of international ownership Would be vastly difficult to arrange. But—and it is a qilcer reflection—fear, which bites at the heart of every country in the whole little patchwork of Europe when it considers the mended df the Air weapon in the future,'will play ft very large part ih finally completing any pact giving Europe a breathing space in which a I the powers, great and small, may well conclude that it is now, while air power is still young and controllable, that internationalism must be allowed to play its part if Europe Wishes to survive,