“VICTORY THROUGH AIR POWER”

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVI, Issue 22997, 14 September 1944, Page 6

“VICTORY THROUGH AIR POWER”

One of the most controversial pictures ever produced in Hollywood was recently shown to General MacArthur and his staff. It was Walt Disney’s animation of Major Alexander de Seversky's book “Victory Through Air Power.’’ The film, as narrated by Seversky, depicts Germany as an iron wheel with a rim (front lines) supported by spokes (supply lines) radiating from the hub (industry). If the rim is attacked, Germany can shift its power to reinforce the threatened sector. If the rim is attacked at all points on the circumference, Hitler can contract the wheel. But if air power strikes at the industrial hub, knocking out the spokes (supply lines), then the entire structure will crumble and surface forces can move in and clinch victory, Seversky argues. Of Japan, with its infinitely larger sphere, Seversky says—and the film illustrates his point—that it is almost hopeless to defeat Japan by inch-by-inch, island-by-island, land-and-sea process, which is far too costly in lives and time. He says, in effect, that so long as the Army and Navy regard the Air Force in the Pacific as only an auxiliary, the Allies will get nowhere because they are giving time to Japan to consolidate her gains. "Japan must be punctured through the heart, and not through the toes and fingers.” The Seversky solution —“Long-range land-based bombers based directly on continental America—Alaska.” Disney illustrates the point vividly. Japan is pictured as an octopus sprawling over Pacific islands. Huge bombers drop bomb after bomb until Japan is consumed in a roaring blaze of technicolour; the vitals of the octopus are destroyed, and the tentacles drop harmlessly from New Guinea, the East India, and other Pacific islands. The film, "Victory Through Air Power,” will commence its season at the State Theatre, to-morrow (Friday)