POOR AIR POWER.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 166, 13 June 1940, Page 7

POOR AIR POWER.

ITALY GREATLY HAMPERED. CANNOT HIT BACK. . Had t'lie Italian air force been up to the ..standard of several years ago the task of maintaining communications with Africa might have been easier. But, that air force lias supped back. Lack of development of now types has placed it behind its enemies, the decline in production waS so marked that there was a purge of high officials' at the end of last year, and the one-time formidable Italian squadrons are now mostly supplied with obsolete models. In ‘her Mediterranean effort, it-must also be realised, Italy is alone. In this area the vastly superior power of the Allies will soon, if not immediately, be applied, and the result will be disastrous to Italian ’ambitions. For nothing that Germany can do. will enable Italy to escape the i.trangehold at both ends of the Middle Sea. While suffering these blows, Italy cannot hit back “at Allied communications in any effective way. Even if she puts .France's Mediterranean “lifelines” from Marseilles and Toulon to Oran, Mers-el-Kebir, and Bizerta, on on the North African coast, there are other routes on the Atlantic to Casablanca and Agadir which can be adopted, though with inconvenience. So long as Spain is neutral these lines will remain safe. In the early stages of the war, moreover, Italy will have to stand on her own feet. She is reported to have received anti-aircraft guns' from Germany, but to be still very short of the many thousands needed to give effective defence to her shores; But.- she is unlikely to receive great material help front the Reich for the reason that her very limited land frontiers will not permit the passage of more than a known maximum amount, especially in the present bad state' of the German railways Later, if the Italians meet with no ■more* success than, they did in the' World War, where the Gormans ultimately routed them at the Caporetto. Hitler may force German leadership on the Italian armiej. The Germans, of course, despise these people who have never won a war for themselves against a first-rate' Power,' and who did not even manage to gain their own freedom without great, foreign aid, and there' seems little doubt that the German General Staff would take .over after any large reverse. But at the moment the new confidence which Fascism has given the Italians makes this course .unlikely.'