AIR TRANSPORT

New Zealand Herald, Volume 82, Issue 25157, 21 March 1945, Page 7

AIR TRANSPORT

SOME CONTROL NEEDED BRITISH VIEWS EXPRESSED (Reed. 11.5 p.m.) CAPETOWN, March '2O "Wartime experiences have made it clear that there would be a most dangerous form of chaos and wide scope for international misunderstanding and hostility unless complete agreement is reached on the operation of air transport under accepted international control," said Field-Marshal Smuts, Prime Minister of South Africa, at the opening of the Empire air transport conference. "We cannot afford to allow unlicensed freedom of the air to anybody when there is daily evidence of the enormous power of the air weapon. Where the war has shown that transport aircraft serve so many important military purposes, the world cannot allow scope for the misuse of commercial aircraft as a threat to world peace and order." Britain does not hold to the ideal of freedom of the air as she has always done where the sea is concerned, said the British Minister of Civil Aviation, Viscount Swinton, who is attending the conference. "If freedom of the air means dogfights with maximum competition, maximum subsidies and maximum ill-will on every side, then we have set our faces dead against it," Viscount Swinton added. "We oppose unlimited competition, and therefore in our domestic policy we are applying our international policy that there must be order in the air. Britain probably cannot be No. 1 in the air—her planes do not outnumber American planes—but she will hold her own." Viscount Swinton said Britain's biggest planes in future would probably be employed on the transatlantic route, and a 110-ton plane, accommodating 100 passengers, was now being built for this service. Nothing much bigger than 45-ton planes would be required for the services to the Dominions, and planes on these routes would not bo much bigger than the present Tudor and York planes. The Dominions' aerodromes should be planned to handle planes up to 45 tons. The Avro York plane in which Viscount Swinton flew from London to Capetown covered the distance in 38 hours 44 minutes. This beat the record of 39J hours established before the war by Alex Ffenshaw. BRENNER BATTLE STARVING KESSELRTNG SUPPLY PREDICAMENT LONDON. March Mitchells flew their 500 th sortie in ! the battle of Brenner today in attack-j ing railway bridges. Other Mitchells flew over Austria to attack the railway bridge at Muldorf. 27 miles north-west of Villach, on the Salzburg-Spittal line. Fighter-bombers at the same time strafed communications all the way from the western Po valley to northern Yugoslavia. The campaign against the Brenner railway is "starving out" Kesselring's 300,000 troops in northern Italy, says the British United Press correspondent at Allied Headquarters in Italy. There is only one major route for the German supply traffic, through a 100-mile corridor flanked by rugged, towering mountains between Switzerland and the Gulf of Venice. As many as 11 cuts in the vital Brenner railway were made tin one day's operations during the past ■/week. Naval vigilance frustrates the Germans' attempts to bring supplies to the [front, by sea. British light coastal craft \in the Gulf of Venice intercepted two lighters and blew them up, in spite of heavy fire from escorting R-boats. GERMAN JET PLANES EXAGGERATED CLAIMS (Becd. 8.30 p.m.) MIAMI, March 20 Germany's jet-propelled planes have not inflicted the damage the Nazis claimed, said General H. H. Arnold, Commander-in-Chief of Army Air Forties, at a press conference. They had ishot down very few of our aircraft, bint had shot down many more jet platnqs than we had expected. Gexmany today, said General Arnold, has probably more aeroplanes than ever, but has no air force because our attack's have practically destroyed the oil industry. Hence German pilots lack proper training and become duck soup for oi*r airmen. However, we are getting a J little opposition. The I Japanese air force is also suffering fipi'n a decline in skilled personnel, many , orf whom are left 011 by-passed islands).