NOTES ON THE WAR

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 52, Issue 3250, 9 April 1943, Page 7

NOTES ON THE WAR

WHERE IS LUFTWAFFE LOST ITS OLD ASCENDANCY UNABLE TO COPE WITH POSITION There is nothing sensational so far in the day’s news- The Eighth Army is methodically and steadily pressing hard on Rommel’s retreating Afrika Korps, but has not at the moment succeeded in forcing him to stand and fight. Sown minefieds and rearguard actions, as in the flight from Alamein, are keeping the pursuers at arm’s length. The flanking forces of the Americans and French seem still too far away to bar Rommel’s northward run, but he has a long way to go before he can join vox? Arnim. Decisive action may come any time. Meanwhile the Allied air forces are having

things mostly their own way

everywhere. Where is the once formidable Luftwaffe ? There is evidence from many quarters that it is unable to cope with air attack from all over the place. It ■has lost its old ascendancy. It is interesting to compare its career with that of the R.A.F., recorded in brief recently. What follows is based on “The Story of the Luftwaffe,” told in “Meccano Magazine” by C. J. Grey, founder and, until the outbreak of this war in September, 1939, editor of “The Aeroplane.” The Luftwaffe, compared with the 25-year-old R.A.F. is but a stripling in yearsZlt was built up since the Nazi Party came into power in Germany just over ten years ago. Incidentally, the word Luftwaffe means air arm, “Luft” air—compare English “lofty” and “aloft”—and “Waffe,” weapon or arm-—compare similar old Anglo-Saxon “wappenshaw” or “weaponshow,” tribal council of war. It is a" tribute to the Royal Air Force that the Luftwaffe was modelled very closely on the lines laid down.by Marshal of the R.A.F. Lord Trenchard, its real founder, as Chief of the Air Staff from 1919 to 1930. Lord Trenchard’s organisation was designed to allow of airhost unlimited expansion, and the R.A.F. to-day shows how excellent the original plan was. Similarly, the Luftwaffe expanded in a very brief time into an enormous organisation. Where They Differ

The great difference 'between the Luftwaffe and the R.A.F. is that of main purpose. This with the Luftwaffe is army co-operation. That is quite natural, as Germany is essentially a land power, with a huge army in the last war and B in this. The R.A.F. in its years between the wars had, small though it was itself, a still smaller army to co-operate with, and the result was negligible in value. The R.A.F. developed rather into fighters and. bombers and patrol aircraft for the protection of Britain from invasion, for the safety of the seas and the Empire, and or the destruction of the enemy’s war machine at its sources. Army co-operation has been taught by bitter experience in actual warfare, but North Africa shows that the lesson has been well learnt.

Where the Luftwaffe went right away from the R.A.F. was in its development of air troop-carriers, parachute troops and dive-bombers, though troop-carriers were first used by the R.A.F. in Irak, and the idea of parachute troops was copied from the Soviet Red Army. Yet the Luftwaffe’s specialisation and superiority in these types perhaps cost the Nazis the victory, considers Mr Gray, who says it certainly “saved us from a worse hammering in the Battle of Britain.” Origin and Growth It was not until 1935 that the Luftwaffe properly came into being under Goering, an ace of the last war, who had succeeded the famous Baron von Richtofen in command of the Germans’ most brilliant air 1 circus in I*9lB. By 1935 the Germans had had considerable experience with commercial aircraft, organised as the Lufthansa, the real foundation on which the Luftwaffe was built.

With the Lufthansa was associated the Sports Flyers’ Union for gliding and soaring and it was in this that young Willy Messerschmitt, the designer of the Messerschmitt 109, got his first experience in the air. With the Lufthansa was also Captain Erhardt Milch, a last war" ace, now sec-ond-in-command, under Goering, of the Luftwaffe.

It was not until 1936 that the Germans had any high-power singleseater aircraft. After that things began to move and in 1936-7-8 the world began to hear of Henschels and Heinkels and Messerschmitts and Dorniers, as well as the older Junkers machines.

By 1937 the Luftwaffe was a really big, well-organised fighting force, and the Germans made no secret about it. Important people from Britain were shown round the leading works and

were duly impressed. The Nazis then, and to the very outbreak of war and even after, led by Hitler himself, did not want and did not expect to fight Britain.

Sticking To Types It was probably in 1939, when war began to seem inevitable, and in 1940, in the so-called “Sitzkrieg” that German aircraft construction made its supreme effort and outdistanced all competitors, building up a great reserve of machines and training many air-crews. It is interesting to note that apart from the Focke-Wulf 190, the Germans have stuck to their old designs throughout, with slight improvements here and there, but no radical changes. The Germans never produced a fighter equal to the Spitfire nor a bomber to compare with the Lancaster. They have no big bombers with power-driven gun-turrets and heavy gun power, like the Flying Fortresses and the range of British Lancasters, Stirlings, and Halifaxes. As for the dive-bombers, the parachute ■ planes, the troop-carriers, and glider air-tugs, they are of little use except with adequate fighter cover against an enemy inadequately provided with fighter aircraft. Under such exceptional conditions, as in Greece, Grete, and the earlier phases of Rommel’s campaigns in North Africa they carried out their mission, but they could not succeed and are not succeeding to-day. Mr Gray hings that these specialised aircraft were built under orders from the German army rather than by , the wish of the Luftwaffe. In' any event the Luftwaffe was> badly beaten and driven from the day air in the Battle of Britain, while Britain’s fighter aircraft made the evacuation from Dunkirk possible.

It seenj-s now as if the day of the 'Luftwaffe is passing and' that of the R.A.F. and the air forces of America, Russia and the rest of the Allies outdazzling in its dawn.