LOSSES COMPARED

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21784, 14 October 1940, Page 8

LOSSES COMPARED

British Superiority In Air British Official Wireless RUGBY, October 11 Up to yesterday a total of 2613 enemy machines has been destroyed over and around the British Isles since the war began. The Royal Air Force has Jost 700 aircraft, from which 340 pilots have been saved. So far this month the comparative figures of losses have been as follows: British Pilots German. British. Safe

The end of five weeks of concentrated air attacks on Britain finds the enemy still failing to get past the Royal Air Force defence in important military numbers and spending a great deal of effort in dropping bombs on non-military objects in London. Nazi “Strategy” Fails “The Times” states that there is no reason to suppose that the rate of German destruction of British machines and factories will increase. In these circumstances, the solemn announcement last Thursday by a high officer of the German Air Force of a new war strategy becomes almost comical. This strategy is defined as control of the Channel and the English coastal area, the progressive annihilation of London, the steady paralysis of every aspect of our national life, the demoralisation of the civilian population, and the progressive weakening of the British

fighter force. All this was to have been done weeks ago, and the change from short-term to long-term strategy can only increase British confidence that the efforts which have cost the Germans some 2613 machines and 6000 airmen have achieved next to nothing. The clearest proof that their hopes have been baffled is this pretence that these hopes were never entertained, or were only entertained as long-distance goals. None of the favourable factors alters the prospect so vividly defined by Mr Churchill, that the British people still have hard and terrible ordeals before them, but they do show that the enemy, for the first time, has been sharply checked, that the air battle in this part of the battlefield has gone in Britain’s favour and that Britain can have confidence in her power, first to hold out and then to counter-attack.

October 1.5 3 — October 2 . 10 1 — October 3.2 0 — October 4 3 1 — October 5 . 24 9 7 October 6.1 0 ■ — October 7 . 27 16 10 October 8.8 2 — October 9.4 1 — October 10 5 5 2