NEW BOMBERS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24070, 15 September 1941, Page 8

NEW BOMBERS

PEODUCTION IN BRITAIN MORE AMERICAN AID VIEWS OF LORD HALIFAX LONDON, Sept. 12 Speaking at an aircraft factory where Lady Halifax named a Halifax bomber, Viscount Halifax, British Ambassador to the United States, who is visiting Britain, said, according to the British official wireless, that in Yorkshire from time immemorial there had been a simple prayer as follows:—"From Hull, hell and Halifax, good Lord deliver us." "1 hope the time is not far distant when that prayer will be constantly on German and Italian lips," Lord Halifax said. "I have no doubt that something like it has already left a pretty deep mark on both those countries. I had this morning a message from Sir Richard Pierse, commander-in-chief of the Bomber Command, saying: 'Halifaxes during the past week have attacked Germany and Italy in the heaviest attacks yet made on Berlin and Turin. Their performance has been excellent, both by night and day. We cannot have too many Halifaxes.' "L have had tho opportunity of seeing something of the aircraft industry in the United States and those —both the management and workers —engaged on it," Lord Halifax continued. "I am quite sure that as the months pass you are going to see the eflorts in the United States constantly stepped up and tlio increases accelerated. It will be stimulating to us to see the giant United States industrial production getting gradually into gear and into movement, with consequences to us that we are now only beginning, perhaps. to measure. "They have had disappointments and lags in production in the United States, just as we had. They have overcome them, and I hope that as time passes, and before too long, they will be turning out valuable stuff to reinforce the efforts you are making here.

"This aircraft will hold a particular place in the great battle of the air that is one of the most decisive points at which this war is being fought, and 1 only hope, as does the chief of the Bomber Command, that those who are turning out those machines will turn out more and more of thorn. I am quite sure the Royal Air Force will be able to make excellent use of them and make a very great contribution to the battle of the air which we are in the process of winning."

AIRCRAFT DESCRIBED DETAILS OF CONSTRUCTION MUCH MODERN EQUIPMENT (Recti. 8.10 p.m.) LONDON. Sept. 18 Details lia\e now been released by the Air Ministry of the Handley-Page Halifax bomber which, with the Stirling and other heavy types, forms the spearhead of the Royal Air Force ollensive on Germany, states the British official wireless. The Halifax is an all-metal midwing monoplane with a wing span of 99ft., a length of 70ft., and a height of 22ft. It is powered with four RollsRoyce Merlin 12-cylinder liquid-cooled engines and has threc-hladed airscrews. The fuselage is rectangular and the bomb-aimer's position is placed under the forward turret. The bomber car rios a heavy defensive armament and has slotted flaps for improved takeoff, De-icing equipment is fitted to the tail unit, and airscrew de-icing is also provided. A cabin-heating system is one of the features. Points in construction that assist identification are the square wing tips, the rectangular tail plane and the twin fin and rudder units at the extremities of the tail plane.