LESSONS OF WAR LEARNED

Taranaki Daily News, 26 September 1933, Page 7

LESSONS OF WAR LEARNED

EFFICACY OF AEROPLANES

COMBINED FORCE ATTACKS

DEFENCE BY AIR ADONE

BRITISH NAVY MANOEUVRES

By Telegraph—Press Assn.— Copyright Rec. 9.40 p.m. London, Sept. 25. Valuable lessons were learned in tire North Sea in a “war” between a naval base defended only by aeroplanes and a combined raid by ships and aeroplanes, pays the naval correspondent of the Daily Telegraph. This was the first manoeuvres of the Navy in which the Royal Air Force has co-operated. When the attackers tried to bombard Elie, Firth of Forth, the Warspite was hit by six aerial torpedoes, and the Malaya by one, the Renown being the only capital ship to escape the aerial torpedoes. Attacking planes dived steeply from several thousand feet and flattened out only 20 feet from the water in order to discharge the missiles, Forty-eight bombs were also dropped upon the very vulnerable and exposed landing decks of the aircraft-carriers Furious and Courageous. Though the conditions were abnormally favourable to the defenders, the attack showed the deadliness of aircraft against warships. Other expert witnesses of. the manoeuvres state that the defending air force was convinced that the whole of the attacking ships ought to be at the bottom of the sea, and consider the Navy’s seaplanes could not upset an attack upon the fleet. The verdict of prominent naval men has not yet been announced. It is understood the naval men’s attitude will be that had the ships really come to shell the coast of Scotland they would have come at night instead of in day-time, attacking at dawn and steaming away on a zig-zag course the instant the attack was over. The manoeuvres did not allow of these precautions.