MODERN AIR WARFARE

Grey River Argus, 2 February 1944, Page 2

MODERN AIR WARFARE

Changes Noted in Britain LONDON’, Jan. 30. “The darker .the better, and if there is ten-tenths of cloud we do not mind.”—that might well be the Bomber Command motto since the inauguration of path-finder technique, which revolutionised methods of bombing Germany. A party . of New Zealand journalists who visited the Bomber Command and Pathfinder Headquarters gained, an insight into colossal devastation being wreaked against German war industries, and the extraordinary manner in which science has come to the aid of fighting crews of the R.A.F. Navigational aids enable path-finders, all specially picked crews, to light up a target area for the main bombing force, which, in •the space of half an hour or so, deals out saturation methods, and remarkable accuracy is obtained in formerly impossible conditions. In a demonstration, despite a gale of 50 miles an hour, at two thousand feet, path-finders dropped target indicator bombs almost dead on the target. These, when landed, spread into brilliantly yellow fire, visible for miles, which no crew could fail to see, but. additionally, path-finders dropped flares brilliantly illuminating the target. Then to demonstrate the methods in bad weather, they dropped sky-marker flares, which showed up an area from the sky. The journalists also were given an insight into the growth and strength of the R A.F. from a mainly defensive force in 1939-40 to the immensely powerful striking power it is to-day, when ten heavy -bombers are capable of carrying a bomb-load equal to that carried by 120 Blenheims or Fairey planes of the early days of the war. It is estimated . that the change-over from defensive to offensive tacfics had a fundamental effect on Germany’s air strategy. Whereas she had fewer fighters m the west, she is now estimated to have a majority, which, are drawn from other fronts, particularly the Russian front, to meet the growing menace of the R.A.F. and U.S.A.A.F. bomber offensive, which is estimated to be tying down nine hundred thousand flak personnel, who are manning many heavy and light antiaircraft guns.