BOMBING POLICY

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24142, 8 December 1941, Page 9

BOMBING POLICY

ROYAL AIR FORCE STRATEGIC ACTIVITIES THE DREAD OF HITLER Bombing from the air is discussed by J. M. Spaight in an article in the Spectator, extracts from which are given below. He deals with the 'policy of the .Royal Air Force and its effectiveness in the present war. - The strategic bombing conducted by the Bomber Commaiid of the Royal Air Force is a British speciality. The German bombing in this.country is a poor copy. Germany is quite good at her own special kind of bombing, that is, tactical bombing, or bombing associated with and subordinated to the operations of armies. She has not shown herself adept at our kind of bombing. Our kind of bombing—one calls it strategic because, though that term has been challenged, any better term is hard to find—has been the subject of a double misconception in this country, and that misconception is nt the root of the bewilderment to which certain events of the air have given rise. It is therefore necessary to make it clear that strategic bombing, of which our Bomber Command is the finest exponent in the world (a) is not blitzkrieg, and 1 (b) is the sort of bombing which Hitler has always dreaded, and still- dreads, and would gladly have avoided. Suggestions by Germany _ . It is convenient to take the second point first. What evidence is there for such a statement, refuted as it seems to be at first sight by what Germany., has actually done in this war? One must go back for a few years for the beginning of an answer to that. Addressing the Reichstag on May 21, 1935, Hitler stated that the German Government was prepared to enter into agreements to prohibit the dropping of gas,, incendiary and explosive bombs outside the real battle-zone. He suggested that again. In a Note handed to Mr. Eden on April 1, 1936, the German Government suggested that a conference should consider the prohibition of the dropping of bombs of any kind" whatsoever on open localities outside the range of the medium heavy lery of the fighting-fronts. These proposals. it will be said, were simply "blinds" to cover Germany's real intentions and desires. Possibly; but more probably not. It would have suited Germany admirably if bombing had been restricted to the combat-area. -'She would still have been able to use her dive-bombers, and it has always been in these that she has been strongest. There is,* however, other evidence. Hitler did not bomb this country during •the first seven and a-half months of war. Why? M "Reprisals" and Retaliation The only possible explanation is that he was afraid of starting the kind of bombing in which we excelled. We did not start bombing Germanv until May, 1940, because it paid us first to build up our air strength to a level nearer Germany's. Even when we did begin—and we did so then because we could not stand by and see Dutch and Belgian towns pounded to dust by the Nazi dive-bombers during the invasion of those • countries—Hitler still only a half-hearted reply to our raids. Clearly he hoped we would not go on. He said so specifically on two or three occasions—and he was probably speaking the truth on those occasions at least. He knew it was a game at which we could beat him in the end. His frienzied outbursts against the Royal Air Force's methods indicated desperation. They had to be stopped. There was only one way: to invade Britain and thus deprive us of a base for strategic bombing. If invasion were to succeed, command of the air over southeastern England had first to be Won. That plan was foiled by Fighter-Com-mand. Bomber and Coastal Commands helped by smashing up the "invasion ports." * Jj' Then, at last, in September, 1940, Hitler set himself to "erase our cities" by dropping a hundred tons of bombs for every ton we dropped, as he had threatened. Again and again the German communiques refer to the raids on London as "reprisals" or "retaliatory raids." Probably they were; the purpose, almost certainly, was to intimidate us from going on with our attacks on Germany. But London and the other cities stood up to the savage onslaught-—and Bomber Command went on hammering at the Ruhr and the Rhineiand.

Morale of Nazi People Why did Hitler fear strategic bombing? Because he knew the German people's morale would not stand up to it. He remembered what had happened in 1918. Then, a proposal was made in the Reichstag that bombing should be stopped by mutual Agreement, and some German towns in the west" and south-west petitioned to that effect. Yet Trenchard had never more than nine bomber squadrons in his Independent Force. . That links up with the point raised at the beginning of this article. Strategic bombing is not blitzkrieg. It is no more blitzkrieg than blockade is. Its action is indeed closely similar to that of blockade. Both are slow to show results, but- they ,are sure. Their effect is cumulative. Both seem for a long time to be leading nowhere, to be disappointing and perhaps futile. They are nothing of the kind. They wear the enemy down, break his heart, take away • his will-to-war. They are, in oombination, the most scientific form of the war of attrition—attrition _ of resources and morale. Together, '"hey constitute our British answer to the blitzkrieg. They are our "two-handed engine at the door'' which will 6_tnke Germany down. Blitzkrieg policy is essentially a short-term policy. We, not having'an enormous army, have-to be content with a long-term pohcy. \Ve are always slow off tie mark. »Ne always have had to be content witb a long-term operational plan, lftat is because we always tru6t to sea power as our main instrument (vide A. l. Mali an, passim). Germany specialises in short wars. It is only these which she wins. The Invasion of Russia The arguments for strategic bombing are really conclusive, but people sometimes discount them, because the effect is slow and is largely indirect. One effect of our bombing was almost certainly the bringing of the Soviet Union into the war, much to ouradvantage. Hitler invaded Russia for a variety of reasons, but one of them was undoubtedly his need for lubricating oil; and that need had been intensifiecl by our raids on « at Gelsenkirchen, etc. Another was his realisation that he could not overwhelm this island so long he had.a potential enemy, fully armed, op-J lls eastern frontier; and here again it was our bombing crescendo which brought home to him the necessity:for rislking rtll in order that he Other results of our bombmg there are too: they will be evident, as will those of our blockade, e ? d of the war It would mean abandoning a fight already half won if we began to pull our punches now in the hope ot escaping body-blows ourselves-or for any other reason.