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Aviation History
1941
1941 - 0993.PDF
andr AIRCRAFT ENGINEER FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEEKLY IN THE WORLD .• FOUNDED 1909 Editor C. M. POULSEN Managing Editor G. GEOFFREY SMITH Chief Photographer JOHN YOXALL Editorial, Advertising and Publishing Offices: DORSET HOUSE, STAMFORD STREET, LONDON, S.E.I Telegrams : Truditur, Sedist, London. Telephone : Waterloo 3332 (35 lines). 8-10, CORPORATION ST., COVENTRY. Telegrams : Autocar, Coventry. Telephone: Coventry 5210. GUILDHALL BUILDINGS, NAVIGATION ST., BIRMINGHAM, 2. Telegrams: Autopress, Birmingham. Telephone: Midland 297 1 (5 lines). 260, DEANSGATE, MANCHESTER, 3. . Telegrams: Iliffe, Manchester. Te/ephjne: Blackfnars 4412. 26 B. REN Fl EL D ST.. GLASGOW, C.2. Telegrams : Iliffe, Glasgow. Telephone: Central 4857. SUBSCRIPTION RATES . No. 1688. Vol. XXXIX. Home and Abroad Year, £3 10. 6 months. Registered at the G.P.O. as a Newspaper. MAY 1st, 1941 £1 10 6. 3 months, 15s 3d Thursdays, One Shilling. The Outlooks Lord Beaverbrook's StatementP OB ABLY few people in this country ever wish to be peers, but those members of the House of Lords who attended the secret session to debate Lord Beaverbrook's statement on the Ministry of Aircraft Production must have spent a very interesting time. In debates of national importance the House of Lords often reaches a higher level of informed criticism than the wordy laymen of the House of Commons. Without knowing what was said at that secret session, the ordi- nary citizen is distinctly handicapped in forming an ipinion on Lord Beaverbrook's account of his steward- ip. Of course, our enemies suffer likewise. Certainly there was much that is gratifying in the story told by the Minister of Aircraft Production. We are not much impressed by statements that the output of one month was two and a half times that of some previous month, for the latter figure may have been much too low. But it is cheering to be told that the R.A.F. had received from the United States and Canada nearly 1,000 assembled aircraft and that the Navy had recently received 95 aircraft and 326 engines. The former figure seems conservative, but in any case the receipts were the output of an infant industry, and when that industry reaches maturity its offspring will be vastly more numerous. hong'tertn PolicyI T is above all things the duty of the Ministry of Air- craft Production to take the long view, to decide priorities, and to arrange, not merely for a certain number of aircraft to be produced by a certain date, but that the right classes of aircraft are ready by the time when they are most likely to be needed. Aircraft are not just aircraft; they are bombers or fighters or reconnaissance machines or trainers, and so one cannot usefully say^that two and two make four. The totals remain just two and two. It must be admitted that piling up reserves is taking the long view. Lord Beaverbrook says that he has amassed 100 per cent, reserves, and aims at 200 or 300 per cent. One is a little inclined to wonder whether in this case the long view has not been overdone. Has the necessity of forming new squadrons, especially heavy bomber squadrons, or increasing the establishment of existing ones, been weighed sufficiently against the desirability of piling up reserves? The weight of R.A.F. night raids has been much increased of late, but there are distant targets which have only received one or two visits, and there are many in Eastern Germany which have never been bombed at all. In the short nights of summer long-range bombing can only be carried out by very fast machines, and the immunity of many targets in Eastern Germany, Poland, and other distant regions makes us wonder whether our aircraft production has been altogether wisely planned. Athens, Cairo, Rome?T HE warning issued by the British Government that if the enemy bombs Athens and Cairo the R.A.F. will retaliate by bombing Rome and con- tinuing to do so until the end of the war, is a step which has no precedent in the present struggle. It is a step which shows that the British Government is, distinguish- ing between the varying mentalities of Germans and Italians. It has been suggested at times that London might
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