INDUSTRIAL TARGETS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 129, 14 July 1941, Page 6

INDUSTRIAL TARGETS

BETTER THAN REPRISALS R.A.F. OBJECTIVES The present offensive of the Royal Air Force isi the best answer to those who recently were demanding that reprisals be taken against Germany for the indiscriminate bombing of British cities. The matter was well put during April by a leading aviation authority: "T'hs bombing of cities alone makes little contribution towards winning a war. From a military aspect 100 dead civilians count for less than one hit on a factory or communications line. In retaliatory bombing the heart is allowed to guide the head. Wars arc. not wen in that way, but by coollyi-planned strategy based solely on military requirements. „ "Public opinion isi an immensely powerful force. The Air Staff is bound to pay heed, to it. That is why the public and. its mouthpiece, the lay Press, must be urged not to demand reprisals which would divert our limited bomber strength from ,4 ts essential objective—the blockade of Germany by air action and the struggle directed aaginst the German war machine. Traffic in barbarities is distasteful to all who have grown to think of the Air Arm as an essentially military machine." A few more months will find the Royal Air Forcq in a position to re• pay through the population of Germans' of the crimes the Germans have committed against British civilians. "What must be smashed in Germany are the things which Germans drive into battle or into lands too weak to give battle. If reprisals di- I verted the British from the righteous task of knocking the club from tlu; hand of the aggressor, they would have betrayed an earnest and angry nation into prolonging the sufferings of those who have done down before tho bully's blows." The Royal Air Force is giving Germans' the proper answer to-day.