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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 2439.PDF
AUGUST 29, 1940 171 APPLICATION OF AIR BLOCKADE (CONTINUED) Italy. Then let the other point of the compasses swing towards England. It will be obvious that this corner of England is the territorial hub from which the R.A.F. Joust strike out to reach the greatest distance in its raids over enemy territory. What better reason could Hitler have to concentrate his air strength against it, or to launch any attack he may contemplate objectively to drive back the R.A.F. to aerodromes further inland? Even fifty miles means a wide belt of fifty miles of freedom from attack for the time being. But only for the time, Herr Hitler. Soon the R.A.F. will strike out farther than at present. Soon there will be no part of Germany that cannot be reached. Soon it will be pos- sible to turn the partial air blockade into a scientific and complete blockade, which no power in Germany will be able to prevent from wreaking the havoc to the planned economy of a nation of which complete air blockade is capable. The four zones into which I have divided Germany for tactical purposes need here some clearer definition. (See map in last week's issue.) They were not chosen arbitrarily upon a simple mileage basis. They are not defined simply by the mere process of drawing an arc of a circle outwards from a central point somewhere in the United Kingdom. I chose them rather because they represent target areas, each of which contains readily definable targets, and each of which is, geographically, a tactical zone. Target Distances The first and second zones (which I defined as the area between the German seaboard—Holland-Belgium in the west and a line running through Hamburg, Hanover, Cassel, Frankfort and Karlsruhe in the east) are the zones within which the heaviest British air attacks have con- sistently fallen. The distances to its eastern boundary measured radially outwards from the nearest British aerodromes are: to Hamburg 354 miles, Hanover 345 miles, Cassel 340 miles, Frankfort 330 miles and Karlsruhe 345 miles. If one wishes, Kiel can be con- veniently taken within this zone; distance 375 miles. In these first zones our shorter-range bombers can be employed upon the nearer targets. Our longer-range bombers can be loaded up to their maximum capacity with bombs and still not require their full load of fuel. The prior charting of weather by reconnaissance aircraft is easier to accomplish, for that frequently dangerous job must be carried out by day to enable the weather to be forecast for the raiders which have to leave at or just before dusk. The importance of this aerial weather charring has received scant notice so far, for it is not a job where glory shines. The job is one of the silent jobs, in which the aircraft has to go out, get its informa- tion, and get back with the minimum of fuss. Within the second zone are a host of names that must have become familiar to the listeners at the loud speakers throughout the world who "harken in" to the B.B.C. Air Ministry and Ministry of Home Security bulletins: the Focke-Wulf aeroplane works at Bremen (what wouldn't the Focke-Wulf company have given for such advertisement before the war? What would they now give to be without it?); railway marshalling yards at Osnabriick and Hamm (a glance at the map shows their significance); and all the great industrial plants of the Rhineland and the Ruhr; truly, the most western zone of Germany would have been more happy with a neutral Holland and Belgium to serve as a buffer to the shocks which the R.A.F. have inflicted upon it. But Hitler in his anxiety to get at France forgot that it is a good thing to have a breastwork to ward off the blows of modern warfare, and by overrunning Holland and Belgium to bring about the collapse of France he laid open his flank (and a most important industrial flank it is) to the direct attack of the R.A.F. from England. From the point of view of industrial Germany it was a bad move. The third zone runs eastward from the boundary of the second zone to a line connecting Stettin-Berlin- Leipzig-Nuremberg-Ulm-Friedrichshafeo. Here the boundary mileages are 545, 495, 470, 460, 440 and 445 respectively, from the nearest operational aerodromes in England. Within this zone there are numerous targets which are now becoming better known to British listeners —Wlsmar (one of the Dornier factories), Gotha (of familiar sound), Stuttgart (Bosch and Daimler-Benz), Jena (for Zeiss field glasses, aero cameras and many other optical war instruments), to name but a few. East of that line lies the zone I have called four. With- in Zone 4 the targets lie far to the east until they touch the frontiers of the TJ.SS.R. as they are to-day in Poland and Lithuania ; the frontiers of Hungary, Roumania and Yugoslavia until, passing through Italy, they join up with the western zone of action of the Middle East Command. Within Zone 4 there are many targets which we have not yet attempted to attack. Their turn will come. Up to the moment of writing, however, the R.A.F. have struck at some targets which lie just inside the zone: at the Messerschmitt plant in Augsburg (480 miles), and at the Leuna oil plant north-east of Leipzig. But this is just touching the fringe of the zone. Saxony, Silesia, Bavaria, Pomerania, East Prussia; aye and Austria, Bohemia and Moravia all contain targets which will have to take their turn if the R.A.F. blockade of Germany is to be driven home. Need for Long Range Until we possess aircraft which can reach the further- most corner of the lands held by Germany we cannot complete that blockade which is so vital to shortening the war. But when that time comes, and with it will come also a vast increase in the air strength of the R.A.F., the sea and land blockade will become complete in spite of the contiguous frontiers which are now open in the eastern part of Europe to trade with Germany. For when the complete blockade is applied, the value of these open frontiers will be cut just as the value of the German North Sea seaboard has been cut by the British Navy. In the next article I shall enlarge upon the considera- tion of targets upon which I have touched briefly. But before then it is perhaps well to say (now that London has been bombed in places, and now that the British Government has denounced the air bombardment of an open town, Eastbourne) that Berlin can as a city claim no exemption from attack. There are numerous essential war industries carried on in Berlin, not only on the periphery of the city around about its ring of aerodromes, at Spandau, and at Siemenstadt, but in the heart of the city itself, ringed about with the dwelling houses of workers in factories. If a bomb misses one of these fac- tories, Berlin will scream out that the R.A.F. have bombed German workmen's homes. But, let there be no mistake, Berlin is a military target in the fullest sense of the term. For Berlin is a war city, and next week I shall give a list of some of the legitimate targets which fall within its boundaries and which lie around its outskirts.
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