SEA AND AIR POWER

Evening Star, Issue 23770, 28 December 1940, Page 10

SEA AND AIR POWER

THE STRENGTH OF BRITAIN Mr H. C. Ferraby, the well-known, naval writer, has an article in ‘The English-speaking World ’ on the war ah sea. In concluding his survey of naval operations in the first year of war, he says: , “ Goering and Mussolini, knowing the weakness of the Axis navies, have been boasting for years past that air. power had put an end to sea power* Why people in this country should ever have credited the boasts is difficult} to understand, but there is no doubt that many expected, fearfully, that no British warships would be able t» operate in the Central Mediterranean* for example. Admiral Cunningham, our; Comma: ler-in-Chief out there, soon showed how utterly mistaken was any such idea. Both east and west of Malta big British contingents have moved 9 freely and without serious hurt. . They have been attacked, of course. (Did tlia fearful ones imagine that warships ought not to run the risk of being attacked?) One Italian air authority.; kindly told the world that in two days 50 air attacks were delivered against one of Admiral Cunningham’s squadrons. He omitted to mention, however* that only one of the bombs hit a target, and that that ship was so little damaged that at first the Admiral had not thought it necessary to report the fact to London. ATTACKS ON SHIPS. “ Ships have been lost by air attack* So they have been by submarine at* tack and by gunfire. But those of .ua who keep tabular records of the news have clear evidence of the very small proportion of air attacks that succeed* of the immense numbers of bombs that are dropped and miss for every one that hits. I have a record of one attack on, . a convoy in which some industrious person counted up to 283 bombs dropped without a single hit. This is not so remarkable when one realises the small target area that is really offered. A 1 convoy of 30 ships occupies soma 20,000,000 square feet of water, but tha deck area of the ships is no more than 240,000 square feet. There is 80 times as much water as deck for the bombs ta hit. And the experiences of the German air force against convoys in tha Straits of Dover and the English Channel have all ‘ gone to show how littla real effect on sea movement the air arm can exert, while as a final and most devastating exposure of the emptiness of the Nazi boasts we had the withdrawal from Dunkirk, when in an area littla more than 21 miles square the Luftwaffe had 1,186 ships as targets for sis; consecutive days and proved utterly unable to stop their constant ferrying ta and fro as they brought the ‘ trapped *■ armies awav from France.

“ To-day * as 2,000 years ago, he who has command of tlm sea is necessarily; master of the situation. We have tho mastery. What is needed now is tho drive and energy of mind to use thati mastery and to enforce our will on tho enemy- And we shall not do that by sitting on the beaches of Clacton and Skegness and Whitley Bay waiting to see what the enemy is going to do next.”