WORK OF R.A.F. DEFENDED

Southland Times, Issue 24597, 20 November 1941, Page 5

WORK OF R.A.F. DEFENDED

INFORMATION GIVEN TO NAVY (Rec. 8.55 p.m.) NEW YORK, Nov. 18. Major Alexander de Serversky, the United Press aviation critic and a notea aeroplane designer, replying to RearAdmiral Harry E. Yarnell’s attack. on the Royal Air Force, said Rear-Admiral Yarnell’s data was distorted and his conclusions were false. “There have been occasions when the Royal Air Force has not followed naval information concerning submarines, but the reason was that there were more targets and tasks than the Royal Air Force could handle,” said Major de Serversky. He said the British Navy was fully and quickly informed when Nazi transports were en route to Norway and failure to interrupt the invasion reflected the inability of naval forces to function under skies held by land-based enemy aviation.

Major de Serversky pointed out that Rear-Admiral Yarnell’s article coincided with congressional hearings on proposals to separate the United States Air Force from army and navy control and the timing was scarcely coincidental.

‘‘The Royal Air Force has been ineffective as an all-round military tool and there have been many instances of attacks on British units it is supposed to be supporting,” Rear-Admiral Harry Yarnell wrote in Collier’s Magazine on the basis of “authentic, hitherto secret, reports from our observers abroad.” He said the observers reported that British soldiers were so resentful after Crete that members of the Royal Air Force were not permitted in the streets of Alexandria when rescued soldiers disembarked; that the Royal Air Force time after time refused to attack U-boats off England, contending it was the Navy’s job, and that the Royal Air Force even bombed a British cruiser mistakenly during the Bismarck chase. "Nothing I say is intended to deprecate in any way the truly great heroism and skill of Royal Air Force pilots or the magnificent job they have done in protecting London from bombing,” said RearAdmiral Yarnell. “The Royal Air Force’s work over the British Isles saved England. Its work elsewhere added up to the major British mistake of the war. I believe the mistake was the fact that it is an independent unit.”

He added that 48 hours before the German invasion of Norway, Royal Air Force scouts saw transports in the North Sea, but were only mildly interested and reported in routine fashion with the result that the information reached the Admiralty after the invasion began.