BUILT IN SECRET

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 December 1938, Page 9

BUILT IN SECRET

HOW GERMANY CREATED HER AIR FORCE. “DEVELOPMENT OF CIVIL AVIATION.” A full account of the secret rebuilding of the German air force on modern lines is given in a Series of four articles published by the Essener National Zeitung, with which Field-Marshal Georing is closely associated. The first step in the secret creation of a skeleton air force was the appointment of the then Capt Goering as “Reich' Commissioner for Air” in February, 1933. Not only was there no military flying equipment available, but the number of factories capable of turning out military machines was limited to four or five. The problem of personnel was urgent, since the German aircraft industry had “lain fallow” for 15 years. It was necessary to make use of the practical experience of war-time fliers before they became too old fo? instructional work.

“The mobilisation of the air industry in Germany at this time, which was indeed a complete re-creation, makes the present mobilisation of British industry seem modest,” declared the writer.

The Dornier, Junkers and Heinkel factories, which had been “living from hand to mbuth,” were at once engaged in the work of secret air rearmament. A new factory was built for the Henschel Company within a space of 90 days.

The first problem was the production of machines on which the future airmen could learn during the period when modern military planes were being designed and built. It Was regarded as essential that the first trained air squadrons should be ready within 18 months or two years, since the process of rearmament in the air could not kept secret for a -longer period. Future three-engined bombing ’planes of all-metal construction with 8.W.M. 600 h.p. engines were particularly favoured at this period, as they could so easily be disguised as civil aircraft.

At the same time the Dornier works were producing new bombers, based on their experience gained during the post-wai - years by the simple procedure of maintaining factories in neutral countries, particularly Switzerland.

The first recruits were installed in old sheds and bisused barns. Under the circumstances there were losses during training, but the ranks were easily filled from the number of volunteers available.

No uniforms were worn, and to all appearances the trainees were civilians. Military aircraft gradually began to trickle through from the 1 factories, so that when “the protests from abroad in 1935 remained paper condemnations the path of the German air force was at last free.

From this point onwards the pace redoubled, since one of the chief hindrances had hitherto been the necessity for secrecy. Any facts Which leaked out had had to the ascribable to “development of civil aviation.” The huge new building of the German Air Ministry in Berlin was completed within 12 months. A few weeks after the Nazi Party Congress of 1936 the first flights of the new heavy-oil machines could be demonstrated.

The triumph of German military fliers at the Zurish air meeting in July and August, 1937, was a turning-point. For the first time since the war German military machines were seen over foreign territory. The victories in all classes of the German aircraft were a sudden eye opener to other countries. The magnificent way in which the German aircraft industry had continued to progress was demonstrated by the fact that military aircraft had been built in Germany to the orders of Sweden, the Argentine, Chile. Portugal, Jugoslavia, Holland, Turkey. Japan and South Africa. The last of these contracts had been secured in the teeth of British competition.