STILL HARDER BLOWS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 January 1943, Page 3

STILL HARDER BLOWS

TO BE STRUCK BY CANADA | FROM AIR. SOME IMPRESSIVE FACTS & FIGURES. OTTAWA, January 14. Canada is preparing to strike hard .from the air. Plans for 1943 involve not only an accelerated flow of trained air crews overseas, but a vastly expanded production programme of the latest types of aircraft. The change over to new types will mean a substantial increase in the number of Canadian aircraft sent overseas. Of 6,000 planes produced in the past thirty months 5,000 remained in Canada to fill the requirements of the British commonwealth Air Training Plan. The balance of all combat types went to active theatres of war. Henceforth fifty per cent of Canada’s aircraft output will be modern first-line service and combat planes and will be sent abroad. Shipping space will not be needed, as each of four combat and service types manufactured in Canada can fly the Atlantic and be delivered to any theatre of war under its own power. Almost daily, Canadian airmen add to their long list of awards for gallantry. Within the past few days two Canadian members of the R.A.F. were awarded the Czechoslovak Military Cross posthumously. Five Canadian airmen received the American Air Medal for their work over Alaska. Three Canadian airmen who fought in Libya wear the unofficial but exclusive “Order of the Boot” which indicates that having been brought down behind enemy lines they footed their way over the desert back to their base. Latest honour citations show Canadian airmen active over Bremen, Hamburg, Cologne, Essen, Rostock, Trondheim, Lille, Mille, Milan and Genoa. The Royal Canadian Air Force organised convoy to transport supplies and equipment over the Alaska Highway to its far northern bases,