EUROPEAN ARMAMENTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22708, 22 October 1935, Page 2

EUROPEAN ARMAMENTS

MR CHURCHILL’S WARNING A GRIM FACT GERMANY’S AIR FORCE. (From Our Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) LONDON, September 28. On the occasion when Mr Winston Churchill made his important speech at the City Carlton Club on the Italian war adventure he also spoke of Germany s armaments and of our own inadequate defences. “ Germany,” he said, “is arming on a gigantic scale and at an unexampled speed. The whole force and power of Nazidom is being concentrated night and day, week after week, upon warlike preparations on land, on sea and in tne air. The German arsenals and private *actories, indeed, the main part of German industry is absorbed in building up the most formidable armaments that can be devised by science and organised by forethought and discipline.” He calculated that Germany had spent £100,000,000 on rearmament, and suggested that it was no exaggeration to say that Genpany was spending this year at least six times as much as Great Britain on army, navy and air force put together. “ German finance is a perpetual war budget,” he continued. “It is very wrong for public men to close their eyes to the sombre and almost sinister procession of facts. . „ . ... “ The rearmament of Nazi Germany, organised and led as she is now. must appear to anyone with any sense of proportion as the greatest and most grim fact in the world to-day.” Mr Churchill pointed to three mam steps wfliich he considers should be taken by this country to preserve its safety. These were to: . ... Organise private factories and industries without delay for conversion to defensive purposes. Fulfil Mr Baldwin’s pledge that we shall not be inferior in air power to any country within reach. Rebuild the fleet. BRITISH AIR FORCE,

On the first point Mr Churchill said: “Something has already been done in this direction, but there is no comparison between our arrangements and those which have been perfected to an hour and an inch by almost every Continental State. Of Britain’s air strength he said: Unhappily the Government did not find out what the German strength was or was going to be, and they allowed themselves to be misled, and consequently to mislead other people, about the true facts. In November last the Government declared that we were twice as strong in air power as Germany, and they foreshadowed that in this coming November we should be half as strong again in first-line air strength as Germany. “ Ministers have since admitted honourably and frankly they were wrong, but we would have applauded them even more if they had been right. A new- effort is now being made to overtake German construction and fulfil Mr Baldwin s pledge. We have a new Air Ministry, which has courageously undertaken a gigantic task. “ But that does not prevent my pointing out that what is being done is utterly inadequate to fulfil in an effective period of time the solemn undertakings that have been given.” In a speech in the west country Air Lloyd George had this to say ot tne navy:— , “Among the many follies that we nave committed in the past few months one ot the worst is that we have been running down our own navy and talking ot the rottenness of our fleet. It is not in the least true. There is not a fleet in the world which is better than ours. There are no sailors in the world superior to ours, and I should like you to name one country where they are equal.” GERMANY’S AIR FORCK ___ In a book just published by Messrs Allen and Unwin, and written by Otto Lehmann-RusfibueUlt, a German whose love of peace has cost him bis status as a German citizen, some startling revelations are made. The writer estimates the number of German aeroplanes as 4000. “ One can hardly assume,” lie says, “ that the Germans keep their 4000 newly built planes in service all the time. Because of the necessity of keeping secret the exact number and because of the difficulty of storage, one can believe them u they give only 1500 planes as first line. But they conceal that twice as many, three, four times ns many planes have been demounted after their test flights and are now being kept in store. They are onlv putting into practice the opinion of Lord Trenchard, who said that in a future war the average monthly loss of aeroplanes would come up to 100 per cent. Which means that in her supply of aeroplanes (mounted, demounted and spares) Germany is now prepared for an aggressive war lasting several months.’’