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Aviation History
1943
1943 - 0419.PDF
^AIRCRAFT ENGINEER FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEEKLY IN THE WORLD •• FOUNDED WO9 Editor G M. POULSEN Managing Editor G. GEOFFREY SMITH, M.B.E. Chief Photographer JOHN YOXALL Editorial, Advertising and Publishing Offices: DORSET HOUSE, STAMFORD STREET, LONDON, S.E.I Telegrams : Truditur, Sedist* London. COVENTRY : BIRMINGHAM, 1 z 8-10, CORPORATION ST. GU. LyDHALL BUDDINGS Telegrams: Autoar,Coventry. Telegrams: Autopress, Birmingham. Telephone: Coventry 52 10. Telephone: Midland 297 1 (5 lines). Telephone: Waterloo 3333 (35 lines). MANCHESTER, 3 : GLASGOW, C.2 : 260, DEANSGATE, 26B, RENFIELD ST. Telegrams : Iliffe, Manchester. Telegrams: Iliffe, Glasgow. Telephone ; Blackfriars 4412. Telephone : Central 4857. No. 1782. Vol. XLIII. Registered at the G.P.O. as a Newspaper. February 18th, 1943. Thursdays, One Shilling. Out)o ok The New CommandsS IR ARTHUR TEDDER has had the very briefest tenure of the office of Vice-Chief of the Air Staff that any man can have had. He now goes back to Africa, where he has established already a brilliant reputation, to hold a newly created post of a scope wider than any Air Officer has yet held. Though subordinate to General Eisenhower, he becomes Commander-in- Chief (presumably the correct title is Air Officer Com- manding-in-Chief, though that has not been definitely stated as yet) of all Allied Air Forces in the Mediter- ranean. These include the British Empire squadrons, the Americans, and doubtless in due course the French will be added to the total. Under him, Air Vice-Marshal Coningham will be in charge of the air squadrons which will support the First and Eighth British Armies. That obviously implies that the American Army Air Force will also take its directions from Air Vice-Marshal Coningham. Never before has there been taken such a compre- hensive step designed to avoid the evils of divided command. There is now in North Africa one supreme commander placed over all the forces, sea, land and air, of three fighting nationalities. The British and the French will fight willingly and enthusiastically under the eminent American who is at the head of the whole cam- paign. It is significant that he is an Army officer. He, also enthusiastically, has agreed that the fleets, the armies and the air contingents shall all fight directly under British officers. While Admiral of the Fleet Sir Andrew Cunningham is at the head of all the naval forces, General Alexander is to command the First and Eighth Armies, into which General Eisenhower has said that he will throw all Americans who can fight. The I-rench General Kodtz is commanding a Corps in. General Anderson's First Army, while the American General Ryder has a Division in that Corps. There will1 be no occasion for the requests and negotiations which so hampered the co-operation of the French and British Armies from 1914 till the spring of 1918. Orders will be given, and it is orders which sailors, soldiers and airmen understand and unquestioningly obey. The Luftwaffe at the Stretch COMMENT has been made in Flight on severaloccasions about the paucity of references to airaction during the winter offensive of the Russian armies, and also to the small numbers of German air- craft claimed by the Russians as captured or destroyed, in comparison with the enormous hauls of guns and tanks. The obvious inference was that the Germans were flying their machines back to the rear before their airfields were overrun. Whether they saved much ci the ground equipment is another matter, but it they did not, the retreating aircraft could hardly turn and fight with much effect. That would mean that the German troops must be deprived cf adequate air sup- port, which may in part account for the speed of some of the Russian successes. The latter have been using Cossack horsed cavalry in the winter to do much of the work which aircraft would normally do in finer weather. Round Leningrad, however, the Germans say that air support for the Russian tank thrusts is the chief f.ature of the battle. The confused state of the Luftwaffe is shown by the Russian report (obtained from prisoners) that Stuka squadrons have been moved from Tunisia to the Krasnodar front. The German fighter strength is now strained to the utmost, and, of course,-certain kinds of bomber work are impossible unless fighters can command the air above. For a long time past roughly half of the total
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