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Aviation History
1943
1943 - 2402.PDF
382 FLIGHT OCTOBER,7TH, 1943 munications, are targets which offer a chance of giving quick returns by causing German defeats on the battle- field, and air oases in Italy bring some within short range and offer new lines of approach to others. Useful ComparisonsA IR CHIEF MARSHAL SIR PHILIP JOUBERT seldom broadcasts a war commentary without tell-k ing his listeners something which puts the air war in a new light. In his talk last week, when he dealt with the help given by Britain to the Russian Army, several striking points were made, and Flight may plume itself on having anticipated one of them. This was the effect produced by the prompt announcement day by day of aircraft losses. Both Navy and Army must have lost far more men than the R.A.F. has lost, but, as their casualty lists are published piecemeal and after an interval of time, " the edge of the loss," in Sir Philip's words, " to the nation as a whole is blunted." Sir Philip recalled that on the opening day of the Somme battles the British Army lost 57,500 men in killed, wounded and missing. If 40 bombers, each with a crew of seven, were the average loss in a raid (which Sir Philip implied was too high an average) we could afford to fight nearly 200 air battles on a large scale before we lost as many men as we did in that one day on the Somme. The results obtained by 200 such air raids would cer- tainly be of much greater value towards winning the war than what we gained on the Somme. That will be CONTENTS The Outlook War in the Air Here and There - • Down the Beam - Royal Norwegian Air Force in Iceland • Behind the Lines Aircraft Characteristics Power, Speed and Weight - Topics of the Day - Plotting Friend and Foe Air Askari Corps - - - Air War on Transport Aircraft " Plumbing " - Correspondence - - Service Aviation - 383 386 387 388 39i 392 394 396 397 398 399 402 404 4<>5 accepted by all even though the objects of the two struggles were different. The Somme battles were fought with the object of destroying as much as possible of Germany's fighting man-power, whereas the present bomber offensive is intended to destroy Germany's pro- duction of weapons. Sir Philip naturally mentioned that the standard of education in aircrews is higher than in the Army, but he probably surprised most people by stating that Rap it takes nearly as long to train a good soldier as it dots to train a member of an aircrew. In any case, the air offensive is the cheapest way, in lives, of hitting the enemw INSPECTING THE DAMAGE : Group Captain Darwin surveys the administration buildings at Grottaglio, near Taranto, from a point of vantage. The allied air attacks appear to have been very^dfective/ but captured airfields are rapidly being put in wjjrirfhg Pr.0, \
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