At the Heart of Britain’s Air Defence

Franklin Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 23, 28 February 1940, Page 3

At the Heart of Britain’s Air Defence

To the man in the street one of the surprises of the war is the splendidly efficient way in which the German raiders have been beaten off with heavy loss. But the Fighter Command, whose work is described here, have always been quietly confident.

Somewhere in England lhere is a room like a broadcasting studio with sound-proof boxes high up in each wall. Practically the whole of the floor space is occupied by big maps of Ihe British Isles, and around tile tables sit a number of telephone operators. This room is the centra! control of Ihe M.A.F. Fighter Command which is responsible for the security of Britain's millions from onem v air a I tack.

At its head is the Air olliecr Com-manding-in-Chiel' —Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh lmwding, known in Ihe Service for some unknown reason as ‘"Stuffy.” He lias under his control not only the R.A.F/s fighter squadrons. litil also the anti-aircraft guns, sound locators, and searchlights of the Army, the balloon barrage of the Auxiliary Air Force, and the Observer Corps of volunteer watchers and listeners. Moreover, il rests with him t.j decide whether or not air-raid warning sirens should be sounded* in liny particular, area, thus bringing the whole A.H.P. system into action.

To the Central Control Boom the news of approaching raiders is flashed from ships, observers on the coast, and oilier sources, and their location is at once charted on .one of the big maps. Orders are then dispatched to air stations in the presumed path of the raiders for fighters to take otf and

intercept the enemy, and while in the air the pilots are kept informed by radio from the Central Control Room of the direction, speed, and number of enemy raiders. Arrows marked to show the strength of the raiders are moved about the maps by a croupier s rake to mark the progress of the raid; and other defence measures —antiaircraft guns, for example—are brought into play as the occasion demands. In this Central Control Room, then, the whole course of an air raid on the British Isles may he followed with uncanny accuracy. And not only followed, for from that same room come the orders which will send some of tlie raiders crashing to the ground and the remainder driven off and compelled to retire, almost certainly before they have readied their targets.

Fighters Rush to the Sky Battle Marked on the maps are the sites of the defence stations at which fighter "planes are stationed ready to go up at any moment. An order from the Central Uontrol Boom launches into the air "planes which, driven by more than 1 .non horse-power, hurtle through space at over 300 miles per hour. Spying" the enemy raiders in the distance, they climb to engage them, and their machine-guns "pour out a deadly stream of bullets. The guns arc sighted by aiming the ‘plane itself at the target, and the fired by the pilot pressing a button on the control stick. The stream of bullets meets at a point '>oo feet ahead of the "plane and then broadens out to form a cone of lead. Thousands of bullets every minute are discharged by the battery of machine-guns- —one gun may fire 1.200 bullets per minute —and only one of those bullets may lm sufficient to send the enemy "plane crashing to its doom.

Fighters, the fastest machines in the Air Force. are essentially defensive weapons, although they are sometimes used as escorts for a formation of bombers. Their range and endurance are short, these qualities being sacrificed to maximum speed, climbing powers, and manoeuvrability. In actual fact the modern U.A.I-. lighter monoplanes are so fast that their powers of manoeuvre are less than those of the older biplane types. Britain favours the single-seater with i single engine of tremendous power, but there are two-seater fighters in the R.A.F. and in foreign air forces, and the twin-engined, heavily-armed fighter is advocated in some expert circles. The U.S.A. has two classes

or fighter, the “pursuit ship” and the attack ’plane for ground “strafing.” “Feeling of Quiet Confidence.” With ’planes and men second to none, and with that extraordinarily efficient defence organisation whose heart and head we have glimpsed in the Central Control Room, it is not to be wondered at that, the men in charge of the Fighter Command are fully confident of their ability to deal with enemy raiders, whether they come in little parties or in veritable navies of the air. As Sir Hugh Dowding said a shortytime ago when concluding a Li. oadcast . speech: “I should like to leave you with a feeling of quiet confidence in our defence organisation.” Li Service parlance, “Stuffy” is on the job.—The War Illustrated.