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Aviation History
1918
1918 - 1076.PDF
for four years in the actual firing line, or alternatively he may have qualified for it by a fortnight's chicken diet in a military hospital at home, that being the whole extent of his " military " service. But these are not the questions at issue. As we pointed out when we dealt with the subject in the article which has impelled our correspondent to write to us, the issue is one of good faith. The chevrons have been issued, and now the Air Ministry, for some reason which is not stated, has seen fit to deprive officers and men of the, distinction in complete contradiction of its own ruling that no-one was to suffer in " pay, pension, decorations or rewards " as a consequence of transfer to the R.A.F. All other matters, including that of the degree of distinction conferred by the wearing of chevrons, are beside the point. That, as we under- stand it, is the view taken by the majority of the officers and men affected by the order. The military critic of the Morning Post Independent ^as recentty fallen foul of the Inde- Air Fprce. pendent Air Fcrce, and that rather badly. He inveighs bitterly against the policy which he alleges removes a considerable proportion of our fighting aircraft from its legitimate work of reconnaissance and fighting over the battle lines to the less effective task of " bombing the apple-women of Mannheim." We confess we do not know where Colonel Repington gets his facts The probability is that this officer, having been on the retired list for a number of years, and knowing nothing of practical, modern war and its appliances, has found himself hard up for a topic which will not get him into trouble with Dora, and has let himself go about something he does not fully understand.v We have always taken the view that, while it was eminently desirable to carry the aerial war into Germany that part of our offensive arrangements would have to stand over until such time as the fullest needs of our armies on the various fronts had been supplied. That was the policy which was followed •consistently by those in control of our air forces. But the moment the production of aircraft and of trained pilots had overtaken those needs and left over a surplus for other employment, it became opportune to carry the aerial offensive farther afield, and that is what has been and is being done. If we ourselves believed that the armies were being starved ior pilots and machines which were detached for spectacular stunts over German towns, we should be among the first critics of the policy. We do not, however, believe that the position is anything of the sort. The Morning Post critic should know as well as anyone that a good maxim of war is that the best 4efence is in the offensive, and that the pudding is SEPTEMBER" 26, 1918. proved in the eating is shown by the large-scale absorption of German material in the defence of the Rhine cities and in that of'Berlin, which is in prepara- tion against the threat of Allied air raids later on. This question of the detaining of German personnel and machines for home defence is one that goes deeply. We know that production in enemy coun- tries is very severely handicapped by want of raw material. It cannot keep pace with the demands from the fighting fronts, let alone provide for home defence on an adequate scale. Thus, while we are using machines and pilots which are, so to say, supernumerary to battle-establishment, the Hun is driven to detain at home material which he would far rather dispose of at the front. In its turn, this must make easier the task of the Allied armies in the field. Again, we do not send our machines to drop bombs blindly. Every raid is carried out against some point or points cf military importance. Take Mannheim as an example. We do not endeavour to kill apple- women. What we are after are the Badische chemical . works, which are the chief producers of poison-gas for use against our troops. Several times our squad- rons have registered direct hits on these works and have caused much serious damage, with a corre- sponding effect on production. Surely it is worth while to employ our aircraft on direct military missions of this kind. Then we systematically raid the enemy's communication centres and cause endless delay and disorganisation to his transport of troops and material. Once more, this is surely worth while. We might go on quoting examples. to show what is really achieved by the policy of the aerial offensive, but it is quite unnecessary, since every one who knows anything at all about it is convinced that it is right and proper policy. Lastly, Colonel Repington ventures the assertion that if the machines of the Independent Air Force had been employed with the armies during the recent offensive instead of being detached to bomb apple-women, the enemy's retreat would have become a rout. That is the easiest kind of statement to make, since it is impossible either to prove or disprove the proposition. He might equally have said that if we had had ten times the numbers of tanks we had, or if we had had five times as many infantry as we actually had at disposal, and if the Huns had broken and bolted we should have done much better. Fortunately, the Air Ministry is not likely to be turned from its intentions by the carping of a critic who has not been conspicuously successful in his summings-up of the progress and lessons of the war, so we take it the Independent Air Force will still continue to carry on in face of his disapproval. 0 ^ The Air Force in Palestine. " THE value of mastery of the air could not be better •exemplified than by the air work during these operations," wrote Mr. W. T. Massey from the Palestine headquarters on. September 20th. " Only one enemy machine has been seen except that captured to-day. This was near Haifa, but it fled on seeing one of our machines. We took three to-day at Afuleh aerodrome with their mechanics and all 4heir equipment. Over 11 tons of bombs were dropped yesterday, and 66,000 machine-gun rounds fired from a low altitude on the retiring enemy. The roads are covered with damaged material and dead. The road from Jenin to Afuleh, along which the Turks were walking unccjnsciously into our hands, was heavily bombed to-day with great accuracy, and large numbers of the dead and smashed vehicles were plainly visible on the road through the hills. At one spot bombed transport blocks the passage. To-day's 10 tons .of bombs clearly played havoc." Writing on'JSeptember 22nd, Mr. Massey said :— " British and Australian airmen chose a new field to-day. They attacked motor and other transport, which was trying to escape, along the road from Beisan, and dropped four tons of bombs on them, inflicting severe damage on men and material. Enemy machines were brought down or driven down near Deraa. " In my wanderings I have seen the extraordinary success achieved by our airmen in these operations on the Tul Keram- Shechem road. Our airmen had broken up the trans- port columns, making it difficult for the men to move. The airmen returned and machine-gunned the troops who were endeavouring to hide. " What had been accontpiished in this neighbourhood was repeated on the Jisr-ed-Damieh road and elsewhere. The total casualties inflicted on the enemy by our airmen must reach a high figure." IO76
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