ALLIED AIR DOMINANCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16372, 28 October 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

ALLIED AIR DOMINANCE.

A THOUSAND TIMES MORE DARING.

Of late everv ' correspondent on the western front has become redundant in his emphasis of the dominance of the allied air service over that of the enemy. But nothing that these writers have given us on the subject has equalled in point or candour the evidence published in the shape of an extract taken from a letter found on a captured German soldi"!' in Delville Wood, evidently written by him and intended for his relatives. It says: " During the day one hardly dares to be seen in the trench, owing to the English aeroplanes. They* fly so low it is a wonder that they do not pull one out of the trtmch. Nothing is to be seen of our German hero airmen, and yet the brilliant ratio is supposed to be twenty-one to eighty-nine! The fact that the English are a thousand times more daring was. however, not mentioned. One can hardly calculate how much additional loss of life and strain on the nerves this costs us." I often feel doubtful regarding the issue of our good cause when such bad fighters are there to champion it." Even allowing for the natural exaggeration of-a man with a sense of abandonment on him, that extract bears out to the full everything that has been claimed for the R.F.C. pilot, and is a testimony of which he has every right to be proud, says tho Field. Even the German daily reports provide i confirmation of this, since they confess to attacks by our long-range guns—lsin naval guns and such like— their munition and railway centres a long way behind the actual fighting line. These ran only be successfully carried out by the aid of accurate air reconnaissance and observation, and that they are successful we have ample evidence from prisoners as well as our own official claims. That sort of thing is absent from the German offensive, not because they do not possess the guns, but because they have not the necessary air support to make it possible. The full effect of our command of the air in the west is not properly appreciated at home perhaps, but the men in the trenches know all about it.