THE AIR ARM

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 63, Issue 4491, 17 October 1941, Page 6

THE AIR ARM

PROTECTION OF CONVOYS. FIGHTER PLANES. That fighter aircraft are being carried in British merchant ships in convoy in the Atlantic and are catapulted off to deal with attacking German Focke-Wulf bombers, has been an “open secret” for some months. Thus, in adition to the destroyers, covettes and other surface craft that are employed to escort convoys and protect them from U-boats, the merchant ships are now provided with powerful fighting planes to guard them against attacks by the enemy’s air raiders. As one mariner recently said: “Every Atlantic convoy is now its own aircraft-carrier.” SEA POWER’S AIR ARM. There is good reason to believe that this new form of protection against air attack on convoys has achieved some remarkable successes. It is one more proof that “what has happened as the result of the discovery of flight is not that ‘air power’ has displaced sea power, but that an important new instrument of sea power has come into being which has modified the conduct of the operations at sea as the steamship in her time, and the surface and submarine torpedo-boats in theirs, modified it.” These words were written a few years ago by Admiral Sir Herbert Richmond who, in a recent article said that “with the advent of craft that can fly, the naval armada became a composite force of surface, submarine and aerial vessels. It is in the highest degree unfortunate that an idea took hold that there was a distinction between ‘command of the sea’ and ‘command of the air.’ In sea warfare, as some are at last beginning to perceive, no such a distinction exists. Command of the sea is obtained by the destruction of those fighting instruments of the enemy which threaten movements across the sea. Those aircraft which take part in this sea campaign for command are integral portions of the navy; as integral as the submarine.” NAZI BOMBER MENACE. The menace of the enemy’s long- |

range bombing aircraft to Atlantic shipping became very real after the occupation of France last year provided the Germans with advanced bases fronting that ocean. The enemy’s aircraft then became a major factor in the Battle of the Atlantic and their operations went to swell the total of merchant ship losses and damage. British aircraft patrols, while putting some check to the operations of the German bombers were by no means a complete answer to that threat. The anti-aircraft guns of the escorts and of the merchant ships themselves were insufficient to keep off the enemy aircraft in the uncertain weather conditions of the North Atlantic. To those measures of protection has now been added the fighter aircraft carried in suitable merchant ships—the escort ships are mostly too small for the purpose. When an enemy bomber is sighted, the fighter is catapulted from its ship and, having the greater speed, manoeuvrability and gunpower, can be relied upon to deal effectively with the raider. If a shore base is within range of the encounter, and provided weather conditions are favourable and its fuel supply is sufficient, the fighter plane flies back. The alternative is for the pilot to bale out or crash land his plane on the water and be picked up by the nearest ship. THE CATAPULT. The use of the catapult to get planes into the air is, of course, common to battleships and cruisers nearly all of which carry one or more aircraft to-day. Before the war catapults were fitted in certain of the larger express Atlantic liners for the purpose of flying off aircraft carrying mails and occasional passengers to land ahead of the ship. The system was tried out in the German liners Bremen and Europa and also in the French liner Normandie, but was not carried on for very long. One of the troubles was the difficulty of housing the plane to protect it from damage in bad weather. The catapult used on shipboard, generally speaking, consists of a long pivoted steel arm which can be swung outboard in any desired direction, and which forms a runway for the aircraft. The aeroplane to be launched is mounted upon the inboard end of the runway. When ready to launch the plane’s engine is opened up to full revolutions and either by

the force of compressed air or of an explosive charge, acting through a mechanism attached to the aircraft, the plane is propelled at high speed along the runway. At the outboard end it is released automatically, having by that time gained flying speed. In aircraft - carriers, such as the Ark Royal and her sister-ships, the planes take off from the flying deck while the ship is under way; but catapults are also fitted so that aircraft can be got into the air while the ship is at anchor. ANTI-AIRCRAFT DEFENCE. The revelation of the use of fighter aircraft to protect convoys against air attack lends interest to the development of the anti-aircraft gun defences of merchant ships. Mi Churchill, when describing the passage of a great convoy while he was at sea in the Prince of Wales, spoke of the ships as “bristling with guns.” The anti-aircraft equipment of merchant ships has been vastly improved in recent months and has increased the toll taken of enemy aircraft to the remarkable figure of 81, as was mentioned in an Admiralty communique the other day. In view of recent developments in this sphere of the war it is of interest to recall that a British naval officer writing in “Brassey,” 193 G, on air operations on trade routes remarked that “it appears that merchant ships are almost completely at the mercy of attacking aircraft. . . . In spite of defensive air patrols, look-, out ships and ships with efficient antiaircraft armament, it is not believed that a convoy could be properly defended. Even a fleet, with its tremendous volume of fire and its armour plate, would have its work cut out to defend itself. . . .” But every weapon has its antidote.— (S.D.W.)