LOST IN AIR

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20572, 4 June 1941, Page 5

LOST IN AIR

GREECE AND CRETE

CAMPAIGN LESSON

INADEQUATE SUPPORT

BRITISH PRESS QUERIES

(Elec. Tel. Copyright- United Press Assn. I (Reed. June 4, 11.20 a.m.) LONDON, June 2.

The Australian war correspondent, in the course of his latest despatch from ' Alexandria, says: “Greece and Crete were won and lost in the air. The brutal fact proved in two campaigns is that the Allied forces were without hope from the beginning because admittedly there was no chance of adequate air support. “The fact is so naked now that no commander should still be allowed to nurture the delusion that even if no air support can be given, his men can hope to avert defeat from the sky by hiding in holes or relying on the ground defences. “The lesson of Greece and Crete is that military ; enterprise of this nature cannot, or ought not to be risked today without at least air equality or except Under pressure of the most urgent need/’

The evacuation of Crete is producing questioning from public and press in London which is more widespread and more heart-searching than any previous withdrawal. AH the newspapers underline the necessity for a revision of ideas of what can and cannot be done in the 1941 methods of war.

Serious Concern Shown

The Daily Mail asks: “When are we really going to get down to the job of winning the war? The country is seriously concerned with the way things are going. The Prime Minister, Mr. Winston Churchill declined to believe that there was uneasiness about Greece. Perhaps he can be persuaded the people are deeply disturbed about Crete.

“The pattern of British evacuations has unfolded with almost mathematical exactitude, leaving territory of immense strategical importance in the enemy’s hands. We are now worse off .than before Greece, because the Greek islands are hostile and Tobruk is menaced from Crete. In Norway, France, Greece and Crete there has been miscalculation or misinformation.”

The Times, in an editorial says: “We cannot afford in Cyprus a repetition of the events in Crete. It is not a general inadequacy of equipment Which lost us Crete though the equipment may not have been all it ought. To almost every observer, it appeared from the first that success in the defence of Crete depended to a very large extent upon constant air support. That is a point where criticism deserves an answer and one essential question is whether and at what moment it was known that the defence would have to be conducted without that support." Defences of ’Dromes

The Daily Telegraph, after paying tribute to those who fought their last fight so well, comments on Mr. Churchill’s statement that the British and Imperial troops were deprived of vital air support because there were no aerodromes.” If the reason was inadequate defences, we have paid a heavy price for the lesson that aerodromes must be well armed.” „ After emphasising the necessity for equipment on a scale to meet the “last foreseeable need,” the Daily Telegraph continues: “The complete interplay of naval supremacy, air power and the army—our weakness in Crete —must be assured now that the danger to Egypt, Cyprus, Syria and our whole Mediterranean campaign has been made greater. If such unified operations of aircraft and the fleet, as we saw in the chase of the Bismarck, had been practicable over the Aegean, the battle of Crete would have had a very different ending. “To read the lesson aright, we must not, of course, exaggerate the advantages which the Germans have gained. Their losses of men and aircraft have certainly been very great. The battle, it is apparent, not only cost them more heavily but lasted much longer than they expected so that by the time our troops left Crete we made an end of their Quisling in Iraq.

Superiority in the Air

“Yet Britain will read as the most urgent lesson of Crete the superiority in the air. That, alas, is an old story though on this occasion it had been the air arm alone unaided by armoured fighting vehicles which proved the superiority. Undoubtedly there will be some questioning of the conduct of this brief miniature campaign, but it is highly important that it should be reviewed without passion or hasty jumping to conclusions. The same material for such a review will doubtless be available very shortly. For the moment it will suffice to point out that Crete was defended on its merits on account of its strategic importance without any such moral obligations as were present in the defence of the Greek mainland. At present it is possible only to express satisfaction that extremely Heavy losses have been inflicted upon the most specialised and least readily replaced of the enemy’s forces, regret that such a heavy sacifice has not availed to secure victory and the warmest admiration for the magnificent courage and determination displayed from first to , last by all forces which took part in the epic defence of Crete.