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Aviation History
1942
1942 - 1014.PDF
468 FLIGHT MAY 14TH, 1942 to resist the Germans in the Colonial Empire after its military defeat in France, the arrival of British forces at the island would have been welcomed. But the Vichy Government is hostile to every patriotic instinct of the French people—and they are as patriotic as any people in the world. It was Vichy's surrender of Indo-China to the Japanese which has led to the fall of Singapore and to all the trouble which the United Nations now have to face in the Far East. When Vichy proclaims that French possessions will be defended, we have to supply the unspoken words "against our former Allies, but not against our conquerors and oppressors.'' There fore, it became an obvious necessity for us to forestall the Japanese at Madagascar, whose garrison could not have repelled a Japanese invasion even if it had had the will. Our action has been virtually a repetition of the affair in Syria. We may congratulate ourselves that we have a Prime Minister who does not hesitate to take strotig action in good time. We all lament the necessity of attacking Frenchmen, we grieve that nearly 500 British fighting men have fallen to the fire of the French, and that our men have had to shed French blood. , The resistance of the garrison was hopeless from the first, and we can only conclude that Laval, the most per fidious enemy of Britain and France alike, ordered it •with the express desire to promote bad feeling between the two nations and to curry favour with his German masters. It must have been obvious from the first that the Britis'h force was in overwhelming strength, and that there would have been no dishonour to the French in submitting to it at once. In time we may be told which of our carriers accom panied Admiral Syfret's fleet. The action was another example of the value of carriers when properly used. The French aircraft on the island were few, and in all probability not very efficient. We must have had com plete air superiority, and that counts for a lot. It is not possible to believe the French story that we dropped parachutists from aircraft, for Whitleys are not carrier machines, and smaller types could not drop enough men to be of any material use. Mauritius is only 510 miles away, but it would have been a lengthy business to have established a Whitley base there, and such an idea may be dismissed. It has been a distasteful business, but it has been well carried out, and a very grave danger to our cause has been averted. Asymmetrical Aircraft L AST week the daily Press got all excited about an announcement made by the German radio concern ing a new "asymmetrical" aircraft for which rather extravagant claims were made. Readers of Flight, at any rate, will not have been taken by surprise, for as long ago as our issue of August 7th, 1941, we published four drawings of this type of machine, patented by the Hamburger Flugzeugbau and its chief designer, Richard Vogt. Our first reference to asymmetrical aircraft was made in a leading article on July 3rd, 1941, in which wt1 examined a suggestion for such a type made by a Royal Air Force officer. The German aircraft which has now caused all the excitement is not new. One of our readers wrote to us in August of last year and told how, on a flying visit to Germany a few weeks before the outbreak of war, he had seen the machine at Hamburg. His recollection was that the engine, a radial, was on the port wing, while the pilot occupied a central nacelle. While the Hamburger Flugzeugbau can probably claim to be the first to get an asymmetrical aircraft into the air, they were not the first to patent such a design, for Mr. Theodore P. Wright, technical chief of the American Curtiss-Wright concern, sent us a patent speci fication which we published in our issue of February 5th of this year. Mr. Wright's patent was applied for in 1929 and granted in 1933, whereas the German patent was not applied for until 1937. The suggestion of the R.A.F. officer was for an asymmetrical twin-engined aircraft, which appears to offer greater advantages than a single-engined type because drag is saved, whereas with one engine drag is added and only forward view is improved. WAR BIRD OF PREY: The Warhawk which is the latest single-seater out of the Curtiss nest, in direct succession to the Mohawk, Tomahawk and Kittyhawk fighters. It is fitted with the 1,280 h.p. Rolls-Royce Merlin engine built by the Packard Company in the U.S.A. Some details of the Warhawk and Packard Merlin appear on page 471.
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