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Aviation History
1945
1945 - 1597.PDF
r66 WAR IN THE AIR worst possible position to complain when she now suffers herself. The sea-air side of the war was strategically settled some time ago; but it did seem that the clearing of Japanese troops out of the mainland of Asia might give the Allies some trouble. A certain number of factories maJdng munitions of war have been established in' Korea and Manchuria. The Allies have proved their capacity to make amphibious landings, and they would doubtless have been able to put their armies ashore in China. The immediate necessity for such a landing was removed by Russia's de- claration of war on Japan. It was an event which was to be expected so soon as Russia had her hands free on her western borders. Not only does it bring .the Big Four into line once more as Allies, but it gives the Rus- sians a chance to wipe out the memory of the war of over 40 years ago when she was defeated by Japan. The declaration was promptly followed by an invaSon of Manchuria from three sides, and the Russian armies poured forward with the speed which they have taught the world to expect from them. This move might not have made it unnecessary for the Allies to land on the coast ; but it would have seriously embarrassed the Japanese commanders on the mainland if they had had to meet attacks from land and sea at the same time. But before Russia had been at war with Japan for more than 30 hours, the Japanese offered to surrender on terms. Clearly this offer would have been made in any case, after the falling of the second atomic bomb on HIROSHIMA BEFORE : A reconnaissance photograph of the Japanese town before it received the first atomic bomb to be dropped. Nagasaki. But Russian action made assurance doubly sure. The Japanese condition was that the authority of their Emperor should not be impaired. The Allies have always proclaimed that their object was to insure that the people of every country which submitted to them should get the form of government which they wanted. It would be illogical to insist that any country must become a republic if its people preferred a monarchy, and so the in- sistence on unconditional surrender was s«mewhat modified in their reply. They did not insist on the removal of the Emperor, as if he were a Hitler or Mussolini, but contented them- The terrible devastation caused by to be dropped in w HIROSHIMA AFTER selves with demanding that he must take orders from an American Supreme Commander. In other re- spects the surrender of the Japanese forces must be unconditional, and the Emperor must issue orders which all Japanese commanders would obey. It is, as a matter of fact, more satis- factory to deal with an established Government than with a chaos in which nobody is quite sure whether the self-styled Dictator has authority to order the surrender of the troops. Of course the Japanese took some time to consider this demand. No Asiatic ever accepts any offer without an attempt to bargain. DEATH OF AIR COMMODORE GAYFORD •\17E record with regret the death • ' last week of Air Commodore O. R. Gayford, C.B.E., D.F.C., A.F.C., who will be always remem- bered as the chief pilot of the Fairey monoplane which, in February, 1933, set up a world's long-distance record by flying non-stop from Cranwell to Walvis Bay in South-West Africa, a distance of 5,340 miles. His second pilot was Fit. Lt. Nicholetts. This flight held the world's record until November, 1938, when it was sur- passed by the flight of three Vickers Wellesleys, led by Sqdn. Ldr. R Kellett, from Ismailia to Darwin in Australia. Gayford enlisted as a rating in the R.N.V.R. in 1914, and was commis- sioned in the R.N.A.S. as an observer two years later. He won the D.F.C. in 1918. After the first world war he held many posts and had many ad- ventures. In 1944 he retired from th? R.A.F., and at the time of his death was Regional Controller for the East- ern Region of the Ministry of Fuel and Power.
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