Do Aircraft Menace Civilisation!

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19953, 10 November 1934, Page 12

Do Aircraft Menace Civilisation!

Übe XTopic of tbe Ulkcb:

Noted English Author Strikes Qrave Note of Warning

In a remarkable book recently published in England, bearing the significant title “Behind the Smoke Screen;” the author Brigadier-General P. R. C. Groves, tells the world quite plainly that it must decide the question whether man is “to be master of his own destiny; or whether he is satisfied to stand in daily dread of annihilation by fleets of bomb-carrying aircraft. The other day the cable messages conveyed an arresting statement on the relative defensive value of warships and aircraft, “The ‘Daily Mail’ contending that ‘a lesson from the manoeuvres on November 3 is that had Britain been actually at war, it is doubtful whether we would at present have a Navy. It was shown how ridiculously easily a small number of warplanes can defeat a strong naval force.” ‘The Daily Mail’ cited Lord Rothermere’s contention that the day of the warship is over, the London journal saying: “A desperate deficiency of warplanes has placed England in deadly peril and the Government must immediately start building thousands.” Menace in the Air The book written by General Groves has already attracted much public attention. General Groves has a record of public service which entitles his views, if not to unquestioning acceptance, at least to universal respect. The author of this arresting book, was once a British soldier. He became an officer in the Royal Air Force. He served in various capacities during the world war, and in 1918, when air warfare was at its height, he became director of flying operations at the Ministry of Air. When the war was over, he became the representative of the Royal Air Force in the Permanent Military Commission, established by the League of Nations in virtue of Article IX of the Covenant of the League; for three years he served at Geneva, and for part of that time was president of the Per-

manent Military Commission. The story of the life of this distinguished soldier reveals the interesting fact in view of the warning he issues to the peoples of Europe, that since he left the service, General Groves has devoted his entire time and attention to the changing problem which air warfare involves. Nature of the Next War “Behind the Smoke Screen” is a highly expert discussion of the nature of “the next war,” in which the writer assembles a vast array of facts in support of the contentions which he puts forward. The picture General Groves paints of war as it will be conducted, if no disarmament convention is drawn up, and if the armament competition which will follows should unhappily end—as it can only end, he says—in an aerial conflict. Changing Nature of War General Groves argues that the whole nature of warfare has been changed by the invention of flying. .?He maintains that we shall never again

see what he calls “a war of fronts” — masses of infantry ranged against each other in highly fortified entrenchment systems. On the contrary, he says, if war should happen it will be a war of “areas”—a war in which aircraft of great power and efficiency will be used in great numbers to strike by aerial bombardment at the “nerve centres” of the enemy state. By “nerve centres” he means not merely, nor indeed mainly, what soldiers have hitherto held to be “military objectives”—the army force, barracks, munition dumps, munition factories, concentration camps, railway centres, harbours and docks. On the contrary, by “nerve centres” he means the great cities where the vast masses of civilian populations live.

What are Military Objectives? General Groves says that against “military objectives” an aerial attack might well be damaging in the extreme. The world is familiar with the issue raised by “The Daily Mail,” with the quarrel being waged between sailors and airmen as to the measure in which surface warships are vulnerable to air attack. On this point the civilian finds it a little difficult to speak with any degree of confidence on the merits of the arguments advanced by the two schools of thought. But General Groves produces an array of facts that will give cause for thought to any civilian who has believed that the Homeland’s supplies of food and raw materials from overseas, and the defence of the Empire for that matter, are insured by the protection which the Royal Navy can now give. Likely Attacks on Cities The experts admit that more important than his description of the use of aircraft against military objectives, is what he tells of the danger to civilian populations. Moreover, General Groves accepts as the present working rule of all general staffs, the principle laid down by a German military strategist Major Endies, some years ago: “What in former so-called uncivilised times we considered a disgrace to any army, namely to attack the civilian population with fire and sword, has now become a basic principle of modern warfare.” General Groves regards it not only as possible, but as certain, that if war should happen again it will be conducted by aerial bombardment of London, Paris, Berlin and other similar centres of population. Attack, he declares, will be carried out by high explosives, by incendiary bombs, and by poison gas. And against attack of this description General Groves holds that there is no method of protection which can render the civilian population immune from its dangers. “It may be assumed,” writes General Groves, “that the bulk of the civil population would be unprotected.” The world to-day is beginning to measure the import of such words coming from such an authority as General Groves. Any conceivable measures of local protection could at most serve to save some small fraction of the . . . inhabitants of London.” Lessons From World War What defence then does General Groves propose? Does he urge that we should build up a great force of fighter aircraft to drive off hostile raiders when they come? He does not. On the contrary, he holds that defence by fighting aircraft is wholly inadequate. Basing himself on the actual experience of the last war, he points out that “the Germans lost altogether but 4.8 per cent, of the aircraft sent to raid England during the war, including losses due to forced landings.” He tells us that even in fine weather and in broad daylight defending aircraft have the utmost difficulty in finding, and therefore, in engaging, enemy raiders. He quotes one raid in 1916 where out of the 94 defending aircraft only 5 managed to find the enemy formation; another where of 121 machines searching for 16 raiding Gothas “none of them saw anything of the enemy.” Clouds Assist Attackers Then General Groves goes on to tell us that “On thick days, which greatly predominate in England, the advantage would be with the enemy.” In such conditions, he says, bombers might reach their objective without being seen at all, “for cloud flying has been brought to a high degree of perfection.” Then General Groves goes on to tell us that the handicaps of defence “are increased by darkness, for then its aircraft are entirely dependent upon searchlights.- If these lights are blanketed by cloud, or even by a slight mist, both the aircraft and the anti-aircraft guns of the defence are blind.” In the light of General Groves’ warning, the announcement in the cable messages this morning is of special interest. “The Daily Mail” makes the arresting statement that Germany is determined to win supremacy in the air. In the following article, details are given of Germany’s definite plan to train her youth in the science and practice of flying. How Nations Take to the Air In Our Own Strength We Flyers Won Through. On Wings Like Ours Shall Germans Too. Mr G. Ward Price in “The Daily Mail” recounts that the German verse above is carved on the face of a pile of jagged rocks at the top of this high green hill. Above them the figure of a bronze eagle looks down the steep green slopes of the Wassersuppe over broad valleys 2,000 feet below, golden wit hstubble and scattered with dark fir-woods and brightly painted cottages set amid fields blue with autumn crocuses. Here is the Mount Olympus of German airmen. This simple monument commemorates their flyers

who fell in the Great War. Close beside it German boys who were not born till that war was over are learning to fly to-day, while the name of the Wasserkuppe is famous among airmen everywhere as the strting-place of the world’s record gliding-flights. Training Pilots “From this height in Central Ger- ! many a skilful pilot in what is really no more than a winged sugar-crate without any engine to help him, recently reached Czecho-Slovakia, 235 miles away, in five and a half hours, and here hundreds of young Germans from May to November are daily learning to glide about the sky. Types of Aircraft From six in the morning until sunset these future German airmen are either out on the slopes doing glides or in the workshops receiving instruction. They make a minimum of three starts a day, but in between have to work at launching the machines, which is pretty vigorous exercise. Helping Beginners in the Air The beginners start on a gentle slope. Each in turn is strapped into the pilot’s seat of a “Zogling.” Six of his companions hold on to the tail. Eight or ten run down the hillside pulling on the two ropes, each of 840 thin rubber strands, made fast to the nose of the machine. When the pilot feels that the tension is strong enough he shouts, “Los!” The human anchor behind lets go; the taut ropes fall away from the glider, and the pupil is catapulted into the air. He is never more than twenty feet above the ground, and is off the earth at first for five or ten seconds only, but he learns the elements of landing, and though I saw some of them come down with tremendous bumps they did themselves no harm. The second week they go on steeper slopes. At the end of the month they are soaring about like seagulls. When the sun is shining an upward current of warm air rises from places where the earth has been cooled by an overhanging cumulus cloud or by recent rain. The soaring pilot seeks out these spots and is carried up with the draught. He finds pieces of I paper or butterflies ascending with him as he goes. Birds, too, take advantage of these aerial escalators, and pay no attention to the machine that is climbing the sky beside them. Teaching Team Spirit Even without the clouds the rising current continues. At San Paulo in Brazil, Heinrich Dittmar, a German airman, who holds the world’s record, once got into a huge cumulus and mounted to a height of 13,300 feet. These machines land at twenty miles an hour, which is no more than the speed of a bicycle. That is what makes

gliding comparatively safe. “The glider is its own parachute,” as one of the thirty holders of the German “A” gliding certificate told me. To qualify for this it is necessary to remain five hours in the air, reaching a height of one thousand metres (3,300 feet) and covering a cross-country distance of 50 km., or just over 30 miles. In all parts of Germany this “GlidSport” is going on. Where there are no slopes they start the machines with tractors. At almost any aerodrome on a Saturday afternoon you will find a dozen young men and women, of the type that in England would be on the tennis-court, zooming about the sky for hours in engineless flight. Young boys hurry past carrying wooden sections for the machines they are building in anticipation of the time when they will be old enough to take the air. Schools have their theoretical instruction, and on half-holidays take out gliders of their own construction to practise on the nearest hillside. “There is nothing like gliding for teaching the team-spirit,” said a schoolmaster whom I met in charge of twenty half-naked brown-skinned boys toiling at tugging a machine up a steep slope. “It involves both emulation and interdependence. If one boy shirks, the work is heavier for the rest. If a clumsy flyer breaks the machine, the others lose their sport.”

At the present moment Germany is the most air-minded nation in the world. The appeal carved on that warflyers’ monument on the Wasserkuppe has borne full fruit.