HAMMERING THE AXIS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25173, 13 March 1943, Page 4

HAMMERING THE AXIS

The meaning of the air war, in terms of actual destruction wrought upon the enemy, received interesting elucidation in the statement by the Air Minister, Sir Archibald Sinclair, to the House of Commons when he was presenting tlie Air Estimates. Air forces are now operating from the United Kingdom and from every other Allied theatre ’ of operations, from the North Atlantic down to the South Pacific, not only defensively, as for the greater part they were perforce employed in the earlier war years, but offensively as one of the striking arms of an unceasing assault upon the Axis. Over Axis territory in Europe, which is probably destined in Allied strategy to provide the stage for the next dramatic development in the war of United Nations initiative, the activities of the British and American Air Forces are now so constant and of such range that it has become difficult to define their scope. The statement by Sir Archibald Sinclair provides, however, an arresting glimpse into the facts of the attack on Hitler’s uneasy fortress. In the worst of the “ blitz ” raids on London the enemy dropped a weight of bombs estimated at 400 tons. In the infamous raid on Coventry, in which every building became an objective, some 300 tons of bombs fell. The damage sustained over London’s huge area during the period of intense Luftwaffe activity was enormous; and a large part of Coventry was almost literally pulverised by the attack. But the bomb tonnages which produced these results appear almost insignificant in comparison with the 10,000 tons of bombs dropped over the Axis countries last month alone, and that figure may, with favourable conditions, be surpassed in the present month, during which by last Wednesday 4000 tons had already been distributed in Europe in the course of Bomber Command’s day and night offensive. As for the material effect of these mighty attacks upon the enemy’s war resources. the Air Minister was able to provide specific information, which, based on reconnaissance photographs, discounts very materially the view expressed by an American journalist in a report in yesterday’s issue. The destruction and damaging of factories apd plants, literally by the hundred, have been meticulously established by careful study of photographs taken subsequent to the raids. The Luftwaffe has not, for reasons which have little to do with the diversion of aircraft to the Russian front, ever returned to the attack on London in the strength of the “ blitz ” period. The losses in machines sustained in those raids rendered them uneconomic in the harsh terms of war in view of the restricted aircraft production of the Reich. But the Allied bombers are returning again and again to the assault on Europe. Such industrial centres as Cologne, Dusseldorf, Karlsruhe, and Essen in Germany, and Turin and Genoa in Italy, are not- bombed as Coventry was and then left to recover themselves, but are subjected to periodic attack, carefully planned first to cripple or eliminate entire

industrial units, communication centres, and power sources, and secondly to prevent the reconstruction of the shattered plants and the broken railways and bridges. The value of such an offensive is, therefore, apart from its incalculable effect upon the spirit of the people, and particularly of those engaged in the attempt to repair the damage done, cumulative in its actual reduction of the Axis industrial capacity to wage war.