AERIAL WARFARE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 211, 25 May 1918, Page 6

AERIAL WARFARE

_ The record of British airmen during, the last two months is magnificent in itself, and.it is afc the same time a striking indication of what is to follow. Ho faras aerial warfare is concerned, the enemy's experience since he opened' his offensive on March 21 has been one of unrelieved defeat. In that period a thousand of his aeroplanes have been brought down by British airmen alone, and in bombing attacks British squadrons have -dropped more than a thousand tons of bombs," while, the enemy's operations under this head have, been relatively insignificant. Except, in raids directed to the murder of non-combatants— a form of aerial enterprise in which ho has a monopoly—the enemy has nowhere succeeded in inflating more than a fraction of the loss and damage he has suffered. His airmen are reduced to doing the hulk of their fighting behind, their own lines, and in these circumstances •arc meeting daily and hourly doiciits which represent aggregate a developing disaster, bmlis-' pitted command of the air has not yet been won,. and may never be won, but the Gorman armies are blinded to-day as no great army has been sines Uic aeroplane became tho eye of armies, and apart from what they have already suffered under aerial attack are menaced as no great army has yet been by superior aerial force. ' Taking, mean-' time, the lion's share in the contest for aerial supremacy the British air squadrons have not only during the last two months subjected the enemy to enormous loss and damage, but have gone far 'towards establishing the conditions iu which it will lm possible to develop an overwhelming aerial offensive. What this means should by this time be pretty clearly understood. With Allied support, Britain during these months has developed bombing attacks upon an .unprecedented scale, hut the great achievement of our airmen has been in breaking tho enemy's nowcrs of resistance and so clearing the way for much more damaging attacks in future. As German efforts in setting aeroplane against aeroplane grow feebler and less effective ever-increasing scope-is offered for on aerial offensive .which would mean in its full development, to quote an expert writer,,"an intensive and destructive bombardment of the enemy's lines of communication' and organised attacks on those areas in Germany from which ho draws the most vital of his munitions." Developed on the grand scale by an adequate force of acro-

planes, such an offensive would de- ' j'.at the strongest armies Germany • is able to mass on th« Western front, and though there is mum to be done before f.hat achievement is compassed the first great step lias been taken with triumphant success. The enemy has been heavily and to (ill appearance hopelessly defeated in a contest for supremacy over the battlefront, and is already beginning to suffer in a marked degree the penalties of being unable to protect his lines of communication and bases of supply against aerial attack. It ren&ins for the* Allies to expand their aerial forces on such a scale as not only to maintain the supremacy they have established, but to make provision for that intensive and destructive bombardment of the enemy's lines of ' communication which need only be carried far enough to ensure his defeat. The work has been pioneered in every detail. Besides winning supremacy on the battlefront. the Allies have extended their bombing attacks •into the heart of Germany's areas of war industry: they have bombarded the enemy's lines of communication freely and persistently, though not yet on the grand scale. With the British aerial forces rapicily expanding, those of the other European Allies also expanding, and an enormous reinforcement from America still to be thrown into the scale, there arc substantial reasons for anticipating the development of an aerial offensive which will go far to cripple Germany and bring her to defeat. That air power is destined to exert a decisive influence upon the fate of the war if only it is exploited by the Allies as it should be, and as what has already been accomplished makes it fairly certain that it will be,_ is not in question. Under the conditions of modern warfare armies are powerful and formidable only so long as : they have behind them sound Communications ensuring a free How of supplies.' Deprived of food, shells and other ammunition, and a hundred and one things which for the most part must be brought up_ vapidly and in enormous quantities day by day,' : the 'best army would soon be reduced to the condi-

tion of a, helpless mob. The supplycentres in immediate rear of an army and in a much greater degree the more important road and railway centres farther back arc nerve centres in its organisation. Attack upon the least of these centres weakens and incommodes an army to some extent. Successful and persistent attacks upon' centres' through which any' large proportion of the supplies of an army pass would endanger its existence, and need only be maintained to make its position untenable. To tho Allied commanders the possession of fast and powerful aeroplanes capable of ranging far afield and of destructively bombarding selected objectives represents such ah opportunity, of attacking the enemy's vital communications as. could bu. gained in land operations only by overwhelming victory. The conditions of the aerial offensive which the Allies now have visible prospects of developing were outlined in an article contributed to the Foiinu/liilii Jkview some months ago by Messrs. Claude Gbahajie-White and H. Hahprb. They point out that the essential thing is not only to attack vital points, but to give the enemy no breathing space in which, to repair the damage done. For example:

A railway shmild be'bombed and a gap blown iii it a.t some important point, ami then attacks should bo repeated so frequently that the enemy's workin? parties are scattered'-every time an attempt is made to repair the damage done. A breach once- made must, in. fact, be kept open. . . . We shall ■be nblp .to do something even more.'drastic than the interruption of the enemy's supplies while, they are on their way to the front, effective and disconcerting though this .sin/tiki be. What we shall be nblo to do, in addition, is to penetrate" so far behind his lines, and strike so deeply into his home territory, that we can attack and destroy .the actual factories in which his war munitions are being made. Such a power bus never been wielded by n, belligerent in any previous war; iherefore, the results to ho obtained from air attacks, when they can bo delivered vigorously and constantly against the very sources of the enemy's supply, may befound to havo an importance which, at the present moment, it is almost impossible to calculate. . . . Once we can really cripple and demoralise the flying forces of the enemy and prevent them from reorganising, it shonl'J then' become possible for us, by a. determined use of aerial power, to make life intolerable not only for the enemy's troops in the field,' | but also for the great mass of workers in i Germany's munition centres. i

Prospects of in this' way cutting the supply lines of the German armies and devastating the industrial areas in which indispensable supplies are produced-arc nearer and brighter now than when the article just quoted wan written. The enemy's flying forces arc already to a .very serious extent crippled and denior: alised. Allied airmen have clearly demonstrated their superiority, and it, is certain also that the Allied aerial forces will be very greatly increased relatively to those of the enemy in the comparatively near future. According to the War Cabinet report, the number of British (lying units formed during 1917-was as large as the total number which had been formed, previously in the whole two and a quarter years ol war. Rapid expansion, is stiil the order of the clay in Great Britain! and it should not be long before j thousands of American battle and j bombing planes are added to the"| forces now available. The trend of aerial warfare supplies Germany '< with as definite an incentive to stake everything upon an effort to j snatch victory this year as the fact | that the Allies only need time to attain a decisive numerical superiority on land.