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Aviation History
1944
1944 - 1520.PDF
• 84 WAR IN THE A must be a relief to the strain on the shipping situation. In the first month of the invasion some 158,000 sorties were flown by Allied aircraft, despite the unfavour able weather. No fewer than 1,067 enemy aircraft were destroyed to the air, which must be a high percentage of those engaged. Our own losses were 1,284 machines, which was slightly more than one per cent, during the initial phase. The proportion of losses has since been reduced. The loss of Leghorn (we almost feel inclined to omit the " h" from the word, so as to correct the extraordin ary pronunciation which the B.B.C. has invented for the name of that place) and Ancona simultaneously probably came as no great shock to the German High Command, as they' must have expected to lose both before lbng. Still, when these captures are added to Montgomery's break-through into new country across the river Orne and the extraordinarily rapid advance of the Russians on many sectors of their front, there can hardly have been anything but gloom in the operations room at Hitler's headquarters. German propaganda is paying the British and Americans the Compliment -sayiag-^hat the Western Front is the rnpst important one, and that the giv- ingkof ground in the East does not reatili' matter. "The inhabitants of East Prussia, the darling nursery of the 'rijssian face, probably do not quite ire that vlWj One remembers that was*JS*«>/Rfssiaiv*Threat to East Prussia^|n re>iJ wHich drew off Hin- md pjg forces (to win the of Tannenberg) and n»de possible the Allied victory of JULY 27TH, 1944 NIGHT BOMBER BY DAY : A Handley Page Halifax III making a daylight attack on a Pas de Calais target. the Marne—a victory far more import ant in its results than Tannenberg. General Eisenhower has been at pains to explain that there is no com petition between the three Allied fronts, and no claim that one is more important than the others. All are hitting the Germans and defeating them. The naval blockade and the bomber offensive have been doing the same thing; though it always takes longer to see the results of those forms of war fare than to appraise the results of a victorious land battle.. Lord Selborne, Minister of Economic Warfare, in a speech last week, was able to announce some of the results of the blockade and the bombing which are now becoming apparent. The supplies of ammuni- ANTI-BEAUFIGHTER: The towed kite balloon on a German minesweeper. tion for practice shoots had been cut down, German aircraft tyres were now- made entirely of synthetic rubber, the supplies of oil to the fighting fronts had been reduced, and, above all, there was the great shortage of Ger man fighter aircraft. The harder we can make the Germans fight, the more such shortages will affect the battle fronts. The Shadow Before A LTHOUGH political events in the •^ Axis countries have no direct con nection with the air side of the war, no attempt to give a picture of the war week by w eek could afford to dis regard two such happenings as the attempt on Hitler's life and the resig nation of Tojo's Cabinet in Japan. Both indicate lack of confidence in the direction of the war; and in bringing about that lack of confidence the air weapon has surely played its part. One result of the attempt on Hitler's life is sure to be an outburst of renewed . affection for him as Fiihrer. Political assassination, when it fails, almost invariably has that effect. Hitler has a hypnotic hold on the sentiments of the German people ; and thankfulness for the survival of the popular idol may well distract minds from their present sufferings a nd their gloomy forebodings about the inevitable future. For very different reasons the United Nations may rejoice that Hitler escaped death at the present juncture. He has made himself Com mander-in-Chief of all the German armed forces, and his military mis takes have brought disaster after disaster on his country. The one sec tion of the German people which has not been bewitched by him has been the trained Generals of the Army. Many of the ablest of them have been dismissed, presumably because they
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