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Aviation History
1944
1944 - 1407.PDF
AIRCRAFT ENGINEER FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEEKLY IN THE WORLD .• FOUNDED WO9 Editor C. M. POULSEN Managing Editor GEOFFREY SMITH, M.B.E. Chief Photographer JOHN YOXALL Editorial, Advertising and Publishing Offices.- DORSET HOUSE, STAMFORD STREET, LONDON, S.E.1 Telegrams : Truditur, Sedist, London. COVENTRY : 8-10, CORPORATION ST. BIRMINGHAM, 2 ; GUILDHALL BUILDINGS, NAVIGATION ST. Telegrams: Autocar,Coventry. Telegrams: Autopress, Birmingham. Telephone: Coventry 52 10. Telephone: Midland 2971 (5 lines). Telephone: Waterloo 3333 (35 lines). MANCHESTER, 3 : GLASGOW, C.2 : 260, DEANSGATE. 26B. RENFIELD ST. Telegrams: lliffe, Manchester. Telegrams J lliffe, Glasgow. Telephone : Biackfriars 4412. Telephone: Central 4857. No. 1855. Vol. XLVI. Registered at the G.P.O. o: a Newspaper. July 13th, 1944 IFe Outlook Thursdays, One Shilling. "Brutally Frank" T HE Prime Minister told the House of Commons that in his statement about the robot bombs he had been "brutally frank." Mr. Churchill, since the day when he said to the country that he brought them only blood, sweat and tears, never has used honeyed words to gloss over an unpleasant situa tion ; and he did not do so last Thursday. The nation, and likewise the enemy, needs to bear in mind the salient facts of the Prime Minister's state ment. The most striking point of all was that only one person had been killed for every air torpedo launched on its way; but that means that each missile which reached a target area killed more than one, in spite of what Mr. Churchill called "the modest weight and small penetration power of these bombs." Against the figures of casualties should be set the handicap which the recent weather has imposed on our defences. In a normal summer month the number of air torpedoes destroyed in flight would be great—in fact, nearly every one sighted ought to fall a victim to either fighters or guns. The public will have noticed the diminution of explo sions on the few fine days which have been vouchsafed to us. The only complete and radical cure for this infliction is, again as the Prime Minister said, the final liberation from the enemy's grip of the soil from which these attacks are launched. We may remind our readers that this point was made in Flight of June 29th in the weekly instalment of " War in the Air." To press on to victory in Europe with all our might is the surest way of ending this and all other horrors of the war. Mr. Churchill firmly declined to discuss the subject of reprisals. By this term he probably meant the punish ment of those responsible when we get them into our hands. In the meantime demands have arisen in certain quarters that the Allies should retaliate by bomb ing some towns in Germany in which there are no mili tary objectives. From every point of view it is to be hoped that this demand will be rejected. Once reprisals start there is no knowing where they will stop ; and the Germans, being more ruthless than the British and Americans, are likely to score in such a* horrible race. We used the policy of reprisals only once, when the Germans shackled our prisoners taken at Dieppe. Our reprisals were ineffective, and they were soon dropped, to the relief of all right-thinking citizens. The punish ment of war criminals in due course is very necessary; but to slaughter those who are not directly guilty of some special atrocity because we cannot yet punish the real criminals would be useless, degrading, and an inter ruption of our war effort. The Plight of the Luftwaffe N OTHING illustrates better the low estate to which the once-vaunted Luftwaffe has now fallen than the collection and comparison of scraps of news from the various fronts in Europe, often written by general war correspondents who are not specialist students of air power. One day last week, for example, correspondents with the Allies in Normandy reported that the Luftwaffe had put up stronger opposition than it had done for some time past. That remark aroused expectations of reading about stiff air battles, but the opposition encountered on one occasion that day was a formation of 25 German fighters, while later in the day a staff el of 12 was also engaged. In neither case was much of a holocaust claimed by the fighters of the Allies, from which it can be inferred that the Germans did not put up a deter mined fight—and small blame to them ! In the helter-skelter retreat of the Germans from
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