SUPPLIES BY AIR

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20891, 22 November 1937, Page 10

SUPPLIES BY AIR

FRONTIER FIGHTING TEN THOUSAND FLYING HOURS Royal Air Force aeroplanes have proved in the ardours of the Waziristan campaign that aerial support and co-operation are essential to the success of warfare among the tractless heights and forbidding mountain valleys of the Indian north-west frontier. Their activities, engaging 760 officers and men, have included punitive bombing and machine-gun attack on ground targets, evacuation of wounded and sick, and maintenance of essential supplies to the army.

The service has solved successfully many formidable problems set by the urgent need of the ground forces. Supplies have been dropped from the air on a scale never before attempted. Examples are numerous. Tribesmen attacked a motor transport convoy a few miles west of Jandola. Further surface convoys to the strong point at Wana were stopped and aircraft were called in to carry provisions. Tn twenty days two aeroplanes alone made 25 flights, transporting nearly 100,0001 b of food, and bringing out 25 army casualties. One flight based at Risalpur, flying four twin-engined Vickers Valentia heavy transport biplanes, transported in the month of June an aggregate of 107 tons of supplies 618 fighting personnel, and 24 wounded and sick. A notable feat was the dropping of 40,000 rounds of ammunotion on Biche Kashkai bridge to maintain its place in the field. Latest available information indicates that Royal Air Force pilots have flown considerably more than 10.000 hours during the frontier operations. Each pilot has flown on the average more than 60 hours a month and the 100 aeroplanes engaged have averaged more than 100 hours since they reached the war era. Total casualties among personnel have been three killed and two injured. Aircraft and aero engines have again demonstrated utter dependability—an essential quality in a land where a forced landing must always invariably mean a crash.

Medical Stores by Parachute In dropping supplies the normal procedure is to fly on a steady course at slow speed a few hundred feet from the ground. Most of the food, ammunition, drugs, and so forth go down beneath in small parachutes, but light stuff, such as vegetables is frequently just dropped overboard. A typical journey took medical supplies and dispatches from Miranshah to frontier camps. The medical stores, which were urgently needed, were carried in two large packages attached to parachutes. The occupant of the rear cockpit was given several large bundles of dispatches to be dropped on specified camps; streamers were attached to each bundle to make them readily discernible in falling and on the ground. On arrival over the Indian divisional camp the pilot released the medical supplies by pulling back the lever of the bomb release gear. The packages dropped off the wings; about ten feet below the tiny parachutes opened and the supplies floated gently to the ground. In less than two hours all of the bundles of dispatches had also been delivered, in spite of snipers’ bullets. Wounded and sick are transported in the larger Valentia aeroplanes. Going up to the frontier camps, the aircraft carry troops and supplies. Before emplaning, men, their equipment, and other load are rapidly weighed and the details checked. The troops then parade in full equipment and enter the aeroplane “by numbers”; emplaning is nowadays a part of routine infantry drill. Stretchers arc installed for the casualties, who are attended on the flight away from the fighting zone by nursing orderlies. Many lives have been saved by this quick, clean, and untiring transfer to hospital; a vivid contrast indeed to the painful journeys that were necessary before aeroplanes were available.

Mobility of Air Weapon Heavy transport aircraft play an important part in the strategy of Empire protection. Their uses are not restricted to maintenance of supplies and similar duties. At need they can be used for heavy bombing missions. They preserve the maximum mobility and fighting efficiency of an air fighting or bombing force, providing the front line units with supplies and eliminating the need for periodical journeys to the base to replenish stores of ammunition and fuel. They make a formation self-contained in that one or two heavy transport aircraft can carry all of the supplies and spare parts likely to be needed by a squadron on a long journey. In recent years the majority of Royal Air Force formation cruises in Africa and Asia have had the help of attendant heavy transport aeroplanes. New types of machine, capable of much higher speeds than their forerunners and better fitted for service with modem fighting and bombing formations, are now in production. Prominent among them is the Bristol Bombay, a high-wing monoplane designed to carry 24 fully-armed infantrymen, or other equivalent load in bombs, engine and aircraft spares, and other supplies.