The Dominion. FRIDAY, DECEMBER. 21, 1917. AN AERIAL OFFENSIVE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 75, 21 December 1917, Page 4

The Dominion. FRIDAY, DECEMBER. 21, 1917. AN AERIAL OFFENSIVE

_. One prediction it is safe to make in regard to the year of ■war about to open is that it will live in history as the year of the big aeroplane— in other words, that it will witness an unprecedented development of the aerial arm, not merely as an auxiliary to other fighting services, but as a detached and independent striking force. At the same time, unless hopes which now rest on a, firm foundation are falsified, this development will turn definitely to the- advantage of the Allies, and will heavily influence the general course of the war. In the development of air power upon which they arc now concentrating a vase amount of skill and energy, and drawing freely upon enormous resources, the Allies are retrieving an initial mistake. They were slower than their chief enemy to realise tho essential value of the aerial arm and its tremendous potentialities. At the outbreak of war Germany was not onty better provided than the Allies with aerial naval scouts and with the aircraft which are an indispensable adjunct to all armies, but had an even greater advantage in having realised the possibilities of aerial force used independently. Luckily for the Allies, Germany selected tho Zeppelin instead of the more effective acroplano as an instrument of offensive warfare, and realised her mistake too late to recover the loss of ground it occasioned. It cannot be said that tho Allies were quick to profit by the enemy's experiments and mistakes. Until little more than twelve months ago their aerial effort was directed almost solely to outclassing the enemy in tho principal theatres, and though the effort so defined was conspicuously successful and in its results did much to limit and check the enemy's aerial activities in all directions, the conception of an aerial offensive- against Germany came slowly to command tho attention it merits and demands. This, however, is past history. To-day Germany is definitely outclassed in aerial force in tho principal theatres, and her aerial offensive against England is yisibly ineffective. On tho other hand, the Allies are preparing an aerial offensivo which, with ordinary good fortune.

should go far to determine the fale ot the war. . Germany's air raids on England, m which the Zeppelin has now definitely given place to the aeroplane, represent a visibly ineffective, attempt to develop an aerial offensive, lii all the recent raids on London, including the latest, only a small proportion of the attacking machines have succeeded in penetrating the defending barrage, and it is th.o common experience of Hie enemy machines which achieve this measure of success to be so HarTCd and chased that deliberate attack on a selected objective is out of the question. Both in their matcnn.l and moral results the air raids they have made on England must bo, profoundly disappointing to the Germans., and there is a good deal to support the view that "they ave being continued not so much tor the sake of the damage done in JingJand as because their cessation would disillusion and dishearten the German, people. The Allied aerial offensive, though it is still at a preliminary stage of development, and is destined to expand enormously in the near future, already completely overshadows Germany's maximum achievements in the same category. It was Observed not long ago by tho aviation correspondent of an Eng--lip.<i newspaper that nothing that has '.ret happened in London gives more than a faint shadow of what an air raid on_ a big scale accomplishes. ( |Therc is some danger," he adds, 'lest the people at home, arguing from tho evidence before their eyes, may imagine that aeroplane offensive at the best is but a fceblo thing. Yet there are towns and depots behind the German lines that have been all but wiped out by aeroplane attack, whilst it has been proved again and again that a continuous aeroplane offensive can com- j pel the removal of a depot or centre of war industry to a distant and safer region. The enemy know this to their cost, for the persistent attentions of our bombing squadrons nave- compelled them to abandon more than one- o£ their aviation bases_ in Belgium." German industrial towns as well as bases and depots in occupied territory behind tho front_ have already been given an experience of aerial bombardment, but at their height these events aye merely leading up to tho great offensive which is now in near prospect. _ An impressive hint of tho forces which are developing is given in a statement by Lord Montagu of BEAUiiiEU, cabled yesterday, that Britain is now producing aeroplanes which carry as many bombs as a Zeppelin, and that machines capable of flying at IGO miles an" hour are now available. A bombing aeroplane capable of carrying several tons of bombs—and this is whas Lord Montagu's statement implies —is a vastly more powerful instrument of destruction than Germany has' ever employed in raiding service, and with such machines under construction and able as they undoubtedly arc to turn out 'aeroplanes very much faster than the enemy the Allies should be in a fair way to develop an aerial offensive of overwhelming power. Germany is making every effort to augment her aerial forces, but she is not only faced by superior material resources—including those of tho united States, which at the present moment is rapidly forwarding the construction of twenty thousand aeroplanes—but is heavily handicapped by tho fact that her air fighters as a body are admittedly inferior to those of tho Allies. In a-legion of airmen, competent, daring, and resourceful and equal to every demand which an entirely new fo ™ oi warfare has imposed, tlio Allies have an _ even greater asset I than tho material resources availablo for aerial warfare, which so greatly exceed and surpass those ot tho enemy.