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Aviation History
1947
1947 - 0131.PDF
JANUARY 23RD, 1947 FLIGHT five without loss, disposing of "any anxiety or over-cautiousness which the Squadron Commander had felt about the change-over from Italians to Germans." Subsequent operations by Hurricanes, Blenheims and Welling- tons are discussed before the Air Vice- Marshal turns his attention to the first withdrawal (9th to 15th April). While the main effort of the German Air Our pilots were working at extreme range, challenging untold odds and, at times, with no ammunition left, chasing enemy aircraft. Force was being directed against the R.A.F., it became necessary to with- draw the Western Wing. i At the time of the second with- drawal (15th to 24th April) it was decided to abolish the Eastern Wing and to control all operations from Athens. A Greek Gladiator squadron was destroyed by straffing, but Hurri- canes which were absent from the air- field escaped. After the decision to evacuate, the whole weight of the G.A.F. was turned on the Athens area, and there was no alternative but to save what air crews and material remained. Squadrons ferried the remainder of the personnel of their squadrons to Crete. The fighters having been withdrawn to the Athens area, the utmost efforts were made to give the maximum pro- tection to our harassed troops. On this subject, the Air Vice-Marshal writes : '' All our machines were work- ing to maximum capacity. Many of our pilots were working at extreme range, challenging untold odds and, at times, after they had used up their ammunition, pursuing enemy aircraft engaged in ground-straffing troops . . ." • '' Even after having been shot down, our fighter pilots would imme- diately take the air in aircraft which had been riddled with bullets and by all normal standards were totally un- serviceable. The courage of these men never failed nor looked like fail- ing. Each day their fellows died, each day they stepped into their battered aircraft, not without a sensation of fear but quite un- dismayed. "On 22nd April I sent the remain- ing Hurricanes to Argos. From here I intended that they should cover the evacuation of the British Armv, but the German air attack became so con- centrated that after a number of Hur- ricanes had been destroyed on the ground on 23rd April, the remainder were ordered to leave for Crete. In Crete, Blenheim fighter patrols were organized to cover the ships evacuat- ing the troops from the beaches. These escorts were maintained throughout the evacuation without respite, and I consider it was due largely to their After having been shot down, our fighter pilots would immediately take the air in aircraft which had been riddled with bullets. efforts that such a large proportion of the total British forces in Greece were evacuated. '' A reference to the evacuation would not be complete without a tribute being paid to the flying boats, both of the R.A.F. and the ECq.A.C. These boats carried out magnificent work ferrying parties of airmen and soldiers both from the mainland to Crete and from Crete to Egypt." The record number of personnel carried in a single Sunderland was 84. "BOMBER* KAURIS TELLS HIS STOIIY A Personalized Account of Bomber Command's Offensive OF the great military figures of thelast war (which, on reflection,seems to have produced as many powerful personalities as earlier a*frd less mechanized struggles) Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Harris, G.C.B., O.B.E., A.F.C.— "Bert," or "Butch" or "Bomber" Harris, A.O.C.-in-C. Bomber Com- mand—holds a unique place if only because he abhorred publicity. '' I did my utmost during the war,'' he writes in his new book*, "to avoid any sort of publicity for remarks by myself ; in fact I considerably annoyed many representatives of the Press by refusing to see them or hold Press con- ferences." His decision on this matter —as on yet weightier considerations! —he made for what he felt were good and sufficient reasons; these he now sets down without rancour and with unshaken conviction. *" Press and Strain Much of what was going on in the mind of Bomber Harris during the days when the Press champed or pined for an utterance by him doubtless re- mains his secret, and rightly so, for a man who braves the buffeting of a bloody and arduous campaign having no parallel in- world strife must on many matters keep his own counsel. '' I wonder,'' he writes, '' if the fright- ful mental strain of commanding a large air force in war can ever be rea- lized except by the very few who have experienced it." * Bomber Offensive. By Sir Arthur Harris. Collins. us. '. Nevertheless, the broad outline of his great task he draws in, completely and incisively, adding such touches of de- tail as to show himself not as a ruth- less ogre or blustering butcher, as his enemies often portrayed him, but as a studious and strong-willed R.A.F. officer who had been on hb guard against Jack-in-Office officialdom ever since in India his D.H.9S were obliged to take off for operations on wheels with naked rims and fly with single- ignition while new dual-ignition en- gines were being sok^ by the Disposal Board as junk^. Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Harris, G.C.B., O.B.E., A.F.C. Since his Staff College days Harris had fervently expounded the poten- tialities of bombing and when, from the roof of the Air Ministry, he watched the burning of the City, he was convinced that a bomber offensive of adequate weight, with the right kind of bombs, would, if continued long enough, be something that no country in the world could endure. This, in- cidentally, was the one occasion on which he admits to having felt venge- ful. "They are sowing the wind," he said to Lord Portal, having fetched him from his office to observe the blaze. " 4,000 Heavies " These two had talked in terms of tour-thousand British heavy bombers but when, early in 1942, Harris found that he had to prove quickly what a bomber force could do to enemy war potential he had a force of 50 heavies and 250 mediums. With these, in the suggested time of three months, he was to destroy the four cities of the Ruhr. Here it may be recorded that the switch from precision to area bombing, , from attacking key factories or even sections of factories, to bombing towns as a whole, had been made some time before he took over Bomber Com- mand. The principle of attacking morale was half-admitted, though con- centration on this was rejected. As the Marshal puts it "... the idea was to keep on ;it small targets . . . but not to mind if we missed them, or at any rate to regard a miss as useful provided that it disturbed morale."
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