AIR RAID DEFENCE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22525, 16 September 1936, Page 18

AIR RAID DEFENCE

SUCCESS OF EXERCISES

ATTACKS BY LOW FLYING

[from oma own correspondent]

LONDON, August 26

An ominous feature of the mimic war which engaged 20 Royal Air Force squadrons and an elaborate network of anti-aircraft batteries, searchlights and observer posts was the success of low-flying raids. Making no attempt to avoid detection from the ground the "enemy" raiders rushed at high speed toward the objective at levels between 300 and 500 feet, trusting to speed to make them difficult to hit by rifle or gunfire, and to the broken background of the earth to hide them from the view of defending fighter pilots overhead.

Encouraging, however, were the terms of the official narrative issued at the end of the exercise, which stated that in the closing period a very high proportion of raids was intercepted before reaching the objective. The co-operation of the anti-aircraft units and of the Observer Corps is stated officially to have proved extremely valuable. Praise is due to the members of the Observer Corps, wh6 volunteer their services and who, in spite of the fact that the corps is composed to a great extent of men who have been following their normal occupation during the day, were on duty during the night operations until very late hours. The anti-aircraft units contributed considerably to the success of the defending force and to tho satisfactory proportion of interceptions -made.

The Air Staff has gleaned useful information from the progress of the exercise, which agrees with exercises of previous years—that effective defence against bombing raids is possible. A proportion of raiders will perhaps always penetrate a defensive system, no matter how elaborately it be organised, in the absence of some infallible device such as the frequently heralded "ray" that is alleged to stop internal-com-bustion engines at a distance; but Britain's air exercises have proved that

the invasion will be a costly matter for the enemy. The likely proportion of losses is high enough to make it doubtful whether tho most determined enemy would continue his raids for long.

Evidence of the Air Staff's faith in defence, as distinct from counter-attack with bomber aircraft, is the largo orders given recently for the new Hawker Hurricane and Supermarine Spitfire fighter monoplanes. To speeds of more than 300 miles an hour the Hurricane and the Spitfire add ability to climb at groat rates to heights far higher than the 25,000 feet level at which some of last week's raiders approached their objectives, and their armament makes them more formidable opponents in aerial combat than any craft yet in service with the world's air forces.