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Aviation History
1941
1941 - 0609.PDF
MAECH 13TH, 1941. Wr/fi LONGMORE'S PERSUADERS : Three Vickers Wellington I As in Vic over the Western Desert. German Blockade Tactics : Night Fighters : Sunderlands' Good Work GERMAN air policy in the latterpart of February and the open-ing days of March had the appearance of being designed to assist Hitler's blockade policy. For a period there were no attacks of any conse- quence on London, but a series of heavy raids on Swansea was succeeded by similar attacks on Cardiff. As is usual in German raids, there was much destruction of private property and suc^i buildings as churches and "^Eools, but it may be guessed that the object of the raids was to interfere with port facilities. At the same time there has been a certain amount of mine-laying by aircraft off our coasts, while, above all, there is the vigorous •ntiack by air and submarine on the shipping in our western approaches. Weather may to some extent have governed the operations of the Germans, for it has been patchy, and sometimes it may have happened that only the formations operating from the * neighbourhood of Brest against the west of Great Britain were able to send off any considerable number of rciachines, while those which normally deal with London only despatched a ' ' individual bombers flown byN; «t pilots: All the same, it does: as if the chief role of the 'ifaffe during the recent period has n to back . up the policy of • kading Great Britain.: this is a reasonable conclusion, it «•:•<; suggests that, as Hitler has hadh ^ hand forced by the Greeks and -"•'•<ral Wavell into starting a land campaign in the Balkans, he does not intend to embark at once on an in- vasion of Great Britain. The majority of his heavy bombers are still ranged up in Northern France, though at times some units are moved back, per- haps into Germany, to rest and refit; but it is not at all likely that a large German Army will undertake a major campaign in the North while there is also a major campaign in progress in the Balkans. It would be unwise to feel too sure about such a theory, for the Germans certainly have large num- bers at their disposal., and the con- centration of troops in Rumania and Bulgaria is not estimated as very great; but the known German dislike for fighting on two fronts at once sug- gests a postponement of the attempt to invade Britain. It may be that the German General Staff has advised Hitler that such an attempt at present would have little prospect of success, and that it would be wiser to try to break British spirit first by cutting down her imports. In the meantime, the opportunity could be seized of deal- ing with Greece, limiting the growing British mastery of the Mediterranean, and helping Italy. If that is to be done at all, it is important that it should be done quickly before General Wavell completes his conquest of East Africa, and so sets free his whole Army for use in other directions. Hitler has the tactical initiative, in that he is free to choose (or,- rather, his Generals are) the route by which he will march through Bulgaria to attack Greece, but he has lost the strategic initiative because he has been obliged to go to the help of Italy whether he wanted to move in that direction just now or not. But he has not sent very large air contingents to that theatre. It-is reckoned that there are not more than 500 to 600 German machines in Bulgaria, with a large per- centage of them Me IOQS, but not many long-range bombers. In Sicily there may be 300 to 400 German aircraft, many of them of the Ju 87 type, with some Me IIQS, some reconnaissance machines, and a certain number of troop-carriers. The number of aircraft. congregated in Bulgaria is limited by the number of aerodromes in that country, which is small. The Germans may in time prepare more. Another form of German air activity of late has been raids by single bombers on aerodromes in East Anglia. Cloudy days are almost a necessity for that sort of raiding, as in a clear sky the bombers would have little chance of escaping if sighted by the British fighter patrols. The R.A.F. at home has been showing increased activity of late, and daylight sweeps over Northern France have been getting more common. There was one very spirited raid by daylight on Boulogne, covered by fighter screens. One fighter forma- tion operated- over the Channel and a dogfight at 30,000ft. with Me 109s ensued. One of the latter was seen to dive into the Channel, unable to pull out of a dive, though the pursuing
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