AIR WARFARE

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVI, Issue 23014, 4 October 1944, Page 8

AIR WARFARE

Unpredictable Hazards DEPENDENCE ON WEATHER SYDNEY, September 26. The course of the Battle of Holland provides striking proof of the extent to which any operation involving a major use of air-power is still largely dependent on the unpredictable hazard of weather, particularly in the crucial stage a few days after the venture has been started, writes the “Sydney Morning Herald’s” military correspondent. This applies to any tactical move under modern conditions, and still more to operations in which reliance is placed on air-power as the major and irreplaceable element, as in the case of air-borne landings. The Dutch landings, for example, depended not only upon air-power at the outset, but upon a continuous exercise of that airpower in order to reinforce the original paratroops and glider-borne forces, to afford tactical support to the Second Army driving up on land, and to blast enemy positions and supply lines farther inland. Bad weather greatly impeded each of these tasks, and gave the enemy time and opportunity to bring up extra forces to a sector already held more strongly than was anticipated. The result was to create the critical situation at Arnhem and to allow a threat to the original corridor between Eindhoven and Nijmegen. Over and over again the campaign in western Europe has demonstrated the element of hazard arising from bad flying weather. One of the reasons why the Allies failed in the original attempt to seize Caen was the limitation on air support due to persistently bad weather. Conversely, a spell of good weather allowed the decisive sally of Typhoons against the German tank divisions trying to break through to Avranches. The element of uncertainty due to the weather imposes a very real limitation on the use of air-power. The dilemma is that a general may be denied vital support on which he has been counting, and yet plans cannot be made on the basis that such support will not be forthcoming, because it is so often a vital part of operations which could not otherwise be launched