POOR BOMBING

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21202, 27 August 1940, Page 6

POOR BOMBING

DISAPPOINTED NAZIS HEAVY ENEMY LOSSES BRITISH ADVANTAGE (Official Wireless) (Received August 27, 3.15 p.m.) RUGBY, Aug. 26 An authoritative survey of the past few weeks of air operations | stresses the advantage gained by the j Royal Air Force at home and abroad. | High officials speak with confidence, but there is no disposition to I underrate the German Air Force’s | power to hit harder than it has yet j done and to continue hitting hard ' for a considerable time, if that is the | policy of Hitler and the German I Command. j Nevertheless the German Air Force j has undoubtedly met with a very j sharp reverse at an early stage of its J large-scale operations against Britain. J The enemy air losses have been much higher than Hitler could have i expected, and at the same time the ! Royal Air Force has been damaging l the industrial war potential of Ger-

| many a great deal more than the ; Germans have been able to damage I that of Britain. j The general trend of the enemy’s l pre-war training was specialised day | flying. Not so with the Royal Air Force. On the outbreak of the war | the Royal Air Force further increased j its lead in this respect by the experi- : ence gained in the leaflet raids. | It now appears that the enemy is I turning towards night attacks. His j meagre successes seem to reflect the ■ tardy adoption of night-flyig techi nique. i Now the enemy is attacking by i night he appears to have selected j targets involving air potential for attacks, but he does not seem to have located the targets exactly and his ■ bombing has been surprisingly | inaccurate. | When the German night raiders ov£r Britain cannot find the targets they seem content to drop bombs anywhere, hoping to create panic. Aimless Night Raiding It would not cause surprise here, given a relative failure of the tactics so far employed against Britain in the air, if there were an increase in sporadic and rather aimless night raiding, in the hope of adversely affecting the public morale, because even the very heavy mass day attack on the Fighter Command aerodromes has proved much less effective than the Germans must have hoped. Such damage as has been done has for practical purposes been repaired within quite a short time. Nazis’ Morale Lowered Large-scale raiding has noticeably reduced the Germans’ production of aircraft and seriously affected transportation in vital areas. Information from Germany proves that the morale of the people in the areas subjected to bombings has been considerably lowered. Royal Air Force reconnaissance planes discovered that the German fighter and bomber aerodromes are now strung out from Norway through Denmark and Holland to well down the French coast. These have largely replaced the old aerodromes inside Germany, but have not yet reached full efficiency because of the damage to communications between Germany and the new bases. It is emphasised that the German Air Force has not yet struck with the force with which it is known to be capable. German night raids are expected to be intensified, but everything indicates that night bombing thus far has been extraordinarily purposeless, contrasting with the Royal Air Force’s carefully-planned attacks on military objectives.