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Aviation History
1942
1942 - 2700.PDF
•7o8 FLIGHT, AIR POWER IN 1942 A Year of Recovery : From Defence to Aggression '; Britain's Darkest and Brightest Hours : Heroism in Defeat as in Victory By MAJOR F. A. de V. ROBERTSON, V.D. T \HE year 1942 has seen a tre mendous change in the fortunes of war. Fortune, said some poet, favours the brave. Some other man, possibly Napoleon, said that it was on the side of the big battalions, while another authority has declared that it followed good organisation. The past year has seen a huge in crease in the battalions of the United Nations, and it has also seen a great advance in their organisation for war. In particular, the year has seen pro gress made in estimating the proper relation ol air power to other forms of conflict In January, 1942, the war in the West was in a condition of marking time. The Royal Air Force had dis covered that short-range fighters could be used for aggression as well as for defence. -Fighter Command had begun the policy of sweeps over the occu pied countries over North-western Europe, which have continued throughout the year. Their object was to hold German fighter squadrons there, to prevent them from going to Russia, and to force them to fight when the enemy's desire was to avoid using up his aircraft. It was found that if R.A.F. fighters Mr. Winston Churchill in the cockpit of the Boe ng Berwick on which he returned from the U.S.A. By flying he was able to visit America, Russia and the Middle East. flew by themselves over France, the German fighters would for the most part let them alone. Therefore, light bombers, Blenheims or Bostons, were sent over with the fighters, and that forced the German fighters to take to the air, It was a novel conception to use the bombers as subsidiary to the fighters, a reversal of earlier ideas, but it achieved its object. About 50 per cent, of the German fighter strength was contained in the West, and could not be used on the Eastern front. The Battle of the Atlantic was not going too well for Britain and America, and what affected the two great producing countries also affected Russia. With this struggle in a critical condition, the presence of the three German warships, Scharn- horst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen in the harbour of Brest was a constant menace. Consequently, the Higher Command, either the War Cabinet or the Ministry of Defence, laid it as a first charge on Bomber Command that these ships should be constantly attacked, in all possible ways, usually by night but sometimes by day, to prevent them from getting loose into the Atlantic to prey upon the Anglo- American convoys. In the inter-war years, when all doc trines of using air power were really academic, it had been held that a fleet in harbour would be so much cold meat for bombers. The Japanese at tack on Pearl Harbour showed that that doctrine was sound, provided that no provision had been made for anti-aircraft defence, but only with that proviso. Brest, and afterwards Malta, showed that it the A.A. and fighter defence was sufficiently strong, warships could not only continue to exist, but could also be repaired and got ready for sea, despite desperate bombing attacks. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau The Brest incident cost Bomber Command considerable losses in machines, and also restricted the volume of bombing attack on German production centres. Still, Brest was made very unhealthy for those three vessels, and in the middle of February the Germans took the risk of bringing, them out and escorting them all through the Channel to safer harbour ages. It was a very daring move, and it succeeded, largely because it was the last thing which the British authorities had expected, but also be cause the German fleet was able to ye under the protection of shorc- basVl fighters all the way till past the Strares of Dover. Anfther feature of the opening of the year was the initial ents in Combined Operations three Services, which took the f raids on various Norwegian
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