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Aviation History
1944
1944 - 1937.PDF
AIRCRAFT ENGINEER FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEEKLY IN THE WORLD .• FOUNDED 1909 Editor C. 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.1 Telegrams : Truditur, Sedist, London. COVENTRY : BIRMINGHAM, 2 : a 10 CORPORATION ST GUILDHALL BUILDINGS, 8-10, CORPORATION 51. NAVIGATION ST. Telegrams: Autocar,Coventry. Telegrams : Autopress, Birmingham. Telephone: Coventry 5210. Telephone: Midland 297 1 (5 linos). Telephone: Waterloo 3333 (35 lines). MANCHESTER, 3 : GLASGOW, C.2 : 260, DEANSGATE. 26B, RENFIELD ST. Telegrams : llifte, Manchester. Telegrams : Hide, Glasgow. Telephone: Blackfriars 4412. Telephone: Central 4857. Registered at the G.P.O. as a Newspaper. No. 1865. Vol. XLVI. September 21st, 1944 We Outlook Thursdays, One Shilling Aircraft and the Lull M ANY writers of authority have pointed out that modern war is largely a matter of lines of com munication. That means getting supplies up to the fighting front. The faster the advance, the more difficult is the supply problem. The speed of the great Allied dash from Normandy, round Brittany, into Belgium and across the German border was bound to be slowed up some time or other by the need to replenish supplies immediately in the rear. The Germans recog nised this clearly enough, and ordered their garrisons in the Channel ports to hold out as long as possible, ^ Le Havre was the first really useful port to surrender, and its capture must soon immensely ease the supply situation. The slowing-up of the armour did not affect the air power of the Allies. There is a sufficiency of petrol and other necessaries in Britain. The question which may have worried some students was how the Air Forces would be used during this comparative lull. Had the lessons of the past been learnt and digested ? It still rankles to reflect that in 1918, when we were tentatively experimenting with air power, we risked los ing the last great land battles while we sent an Indepea- dent Air Force to drop a few small bombs on the cities of the Rhineland; and again in 1939-40 that Bomber Command dropped leaflets • over Germany while the troop trains were bringing German divisions from the Eastern to the Western Front and the Siegfried line was being fortified. But, thanks be to Providence, brains now animate the use of our air power. Bomber Command first contri buted to the fall of Le Havre. As the British G.O.C. wrote to Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris, the bombers dropped 5,000 tons " just as the Army wanted it." Then Sir Arthur Harris and General Spaatz turned to the other targets which really mattered. At such a crisis there would be little point in striking at general war production, for it takes some months tor the effect of such blows to be felt on the battlefield. Raids which forced the depleted Luftwaffe to send up fighters were useful, and several such raids resulted in Germany losing hundreds of her fighters. Very many were also destroyed on the ground. The two items most likely to affect the German power of resistance in the next series of battles were oil and railway communications. From all sides the Allied bombers struck by night and by day at oil installations, and they also bombed the crowded railway junctions. Frankfurt station was known to be crammed with mili tary supplies on the way to the Siegfried line, and 400,000 fire bombs were dropped on them. It was the first tactical (as apart from strategical) raid on that pilace. These operations will surely expedite the day when the washing will at long last be hung out to dry. Only One Service ? I N the current issue of the paper Air Mail, which is the journal of the Royal Air Force Association, once known as Comrades of the Royal Air Force, there is a very thoughtful article entitled "Island Power." In it the anonymous writer emphasises the inter dependence of the three Fighting Services, and pleads for more common thought between them all. The ideal, he writes, may be. to amalgamate the three existing Services into one fighting force, operating imder one Chief of Staff and wearing the same uniform. But he admits that we should be unwise to force the pace unduly, for we have to do with human nature, and human nature, especially in England (he might
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