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Aviation History
1943
1943 - 2298.PDF
-328 British warships passing through to the Indian Ocean for- the offensive against Japan. It was disappointing that the Germans were able to gain control of the Dodecanese Islands-. The story- goes that the Italian commander in Rhodes was quite ready and willing to hand the islands over to the Allies in accordance with the Armistice, but the Germans did some dive-bombing, whereupon he surrendered. Though the Italians certainly hate the Germans much more deeply than they dislike the British, they are so tired of war of any sort that they were hardly likely to risk their lives in fighting anybody. One wonders if that will be the last major success to be won by dive-bombers. If there are doubts about the future of the dive-bomber, or rather of the tactics of dive-bombing, against land targets, these tactics seem likely to survive against ships. Specially de- signed dive-bombers are not always necessary, for other types can perform the manoeuvre with satisfactory results even though they may not come down so steeply as the Stuka and may not always carry such a heavy bomb load. Fleet Air ArrrrAlbacores have been found quite useful foe this purpose, and one squadron in particular, which has been working under Fighter Com- mand, has sunk or damaged. more than 70 enemy vessels in night actions during the lasf 12 months in the English Channel. Most of the vessels hit have been E-boats and R-boats, and some of the successes have been scored on the darkest nights. The story is intriguing, and as yet full de- tails have not been made public, but the results have followed on a series of experiments carried out last year in the wilds of Scotland. The word "wilds" cannot mean the more mountainous parts of the Highlands, FLIGHT PACIFIC INVASION : American troops charging across the beach at Rendova inthe Solomons, while an Army P.40 covers the landing. but early in the war visitors were de- barred from crossing the Great Glen, through which runs the Caledonian Canal, and in the parts to the north of it there is plenty of flat ground on which aircraft can carry out secret ex- periments. Some of the members of this squadron had previous experience of a form of dive-bombing in the Western Desert, as well as over the waters of the Mediterranean. Russian Victories TT is very irritating to be told so -*- little about the part played by the air in the recent series of great vic- tories bv the Russian forces, for with- " WE LAID MINES " An air/sea mine waiting to be loaded intoWellington in the background. The Wimpey belongs to a Polish boml Mf\ K JVA out doubt that part must have been great. The gunners in Moscow have been kept busy firing salvoes of triumph to welcome the number of important towns captured in rapid successiqji by the Red Army. Russian geography is a subject which few Britons have studied in their school days, and accordingly it is not easy for our ordinary citizens to grasp the exact significance of the recapture ol towns whose names are strange tc them. But a. seafaring nation like the British can understand the importance of the recapture of the naval base of Novorossisk, which is second in im- portance only to Sevastopol. All through the war-4the Russian fleet has..*1- continued to hold supremacy in the Black Sea, though the sailors must have been badly handicapped when their two main naval bases fell into German hands. None the less, no German warships other than sub- marines could make their way into the Black Sea, and the Rumanian Navy did not count for much. Before long, we may hope, Sevastopol will also be again in Russian hands. The crossing of the River .Desna, which runs into the Dnieper near to the city of Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine, was also a great feat. It is a peculiarity of rivers in southern Russia that on most of them the western bank is steep and the eastern y bank low and shelving, and this has ' been a constant advantage to the Germans and a corresponding diffi- culty to the Russians, whether the tide of war was moving to the east or to the west. Without doubt, the Germans must have been using their bomber force to try to hold back the Russian advance.
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