NEW PHASES Or AIR WAR

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 17 April 1944, Page 4

NEW PHASES Or AIR WAR

TWO fresh phases of the European air assault are discernible. Blasting of key points in the German machine, which has been going on .almost non-stop in the West for some time, has now spread to the southeast. The air arm based on Italy, which Mr Churchill told us was almost as strong as the one based on Britain, is now stretching to Hungary, Bucharest and the Ploesti oilfields and down into Yugoslavia, where Marshal Tito’s Partisans have opened a miniature second front. This is long-range strategic bombing designed destroy war potential In the Balkan satellites at Its source, dlsrutH communications, add to the enarny s confusion and embarrassmefrt and help Rumania make up her mind whether she is to be first out of too war—if any freedom of choice remains to her. Targets are carefully talon ted for their military irnpoHouoo end there is also the aim ’it assisting Russia as much as possible in bar forward surge. In tbg Wesi. -//idle long-range strategic 1/00. hi rig is continuing and l/robably will go on after the second front is launched, the immediate emphasis Is now >»*dng placed on the pounding of Onrman positions closer to their forward defence areas. The objective is to destroy communica- | tin ns, upset the disposition of troops I and wegheri the German defence in depth. This marks a definite stage in the evolution of the invasion technique. It may be the final air phase which v/11l rise to a new peak of fury before the three-dimensional Anglo-American amphibious machine goes into the assault, .sea-borne and air-covered. Bombing can pulverise, but, judging from the lesson of Cassino, a frank evaluation of which we print, ed last Thursday, It cannot with certainty obliterate the defenders even in a defined area, let alone over a wide front. When the advance air arm, used on a scale and to a pitch o£ intensity never before

known, has clone ijs worst, the ground troops will still have to make the breaches and sustain them against' strong echeloned defences. Air sup- j port, mainly by fighters, will never j leave the soldiers. That was the I phase of invasion General Eisen- j hower had in mind when he told | fighter pilots that he was going to demand “everything you’ve got.” j Meantime the softening-up process! goes along by methodical and welldefined stages.