DISTURBING DECLINE

Evening Star, Issue 25894, 11 September 1946, Page 7

DISTURBING DECLINE

Britain's Air Power Lord Tedder s Blunt Warning (Rec. I I a.m.) LONDON, September 10. Marshal of the R.A.F." Lord Tedder gave a warning at a Press conference to-day about the decline of R.A.F. power as a result of the shortage of volunteers. “ We are in danger of losing the race against time to fill up with volunteers before the drain in war-time personnel reduces the R.A.F. to impotence,” he said. “ The position is dangerous. The results from the recruiting scheme are disappointing and, unless we do something drastic our voice in the world and in the United Nations will count for nothing. If we go on at the present rate we shall have only half the necessary reengagements and enlistments by the end of the year. The jam in which we will then be will be nothing like the jam we will be in next year and afterwards unless the whole attitude changes.” Asked how soon the R.A.F. would reach rockbottom from the viewpoint of the training of men, Lord Tedder replied: “ We are very rocky now, and if we were in trouble we would find it damned difficult.” Lord Tedder added that the complacent old tag about the English losing every battle except the last would in the modern world be merely an epitaph of suicide. He saw no ground for complacency regarding the conduct of the last war. It was too long and. too expensive. The armed forces had not kept apace with scientific and technical developments, and it took three years to recover the initiative. He expressed the opinion that the influence of air power was still not fully understood. Prophets were talking of another war which would be fought with guided rockets carrying atomic bombs, with fighter-bombera obsolete. “ Some time, perhaps, but not yet,” he said. “We must live in the present while keeping pace with future possibilities. Recent scientific development has not superseded air‘power, but enormously enhanced it. Whatever new weapon is invented will still require a highly trained technical aeronautical 'service to handle it. The Government’s defence plans must ensure security against a more sudden and far heavier attack than we suffered in the last war.”