TIGHTENING RING ROUND REICH

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 29, 29 October 1942, Page 5

TIGHTENING RING ROUND REICH

Power Of The R.A.F. HELP TO NAVY AND TO RUSSIA (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, October 27. The Air Minister, Sir Archibald Sinclair, today described the Bomber Command of the R.A.F. as a javelin which Britain had added to the sword and trident in her armoury. He said we were continually improving the methods of search, combined with bard flying in all weathers and had shown a striking increase in the number of U-boats sighted and attacked, thus aiding the Navy to draw the blockade tighter round Germany and bring our own supplies from overseas.

Our successes had forced the enemy to send long-range fighters into the Bay of Biscay, where the Coastal Command was hurting -him most. But this had availed the Germans nothing. Last month 12 enemy aircraft were destroyed in the Bay of Biscay and a new high record for attacks on Üboats was reached —45 per cent, above the best of any previous month. The Minister said it was 18 months since Hitler had attacked Britain in force by night, and that another sustained blitz on the 1940-41 scale was unlikely.- The Germans would meet with a'very hot reception if they came over in force. Nevertheless, it must be remembered that their machines and bomb technique had improved, as ours had done, and that there must be no complacency. Our preparations for the winter nights were continuing. British Bombing Policy.

The R.A.F.’s own bombing policy tills year had been dominated by two themes—helping the Navy in the Battle of the Atlantic, and helping Russia. The Russians well knew the value of our bomber policy, which, along with the fighter sweeps, had forced the Germans to bring to the Western Front nearly as many fighters as they had on the whole Eastern Front.

The Soviet economist, Professor Y. Varga, had recently ' drawn attention to the serious transport difficulties which were hampering the German offensives at Stalingrad and Mosdok and had paid a tribute to the R.A.F. for aggravating those difficulties by attacks on the German transport system in the west, It was not surprising, said Sir Archibald, that the weight of our bomber offensive was already felt as far afield as Stalingrad and Mosdok. For, in spite of all the diversions which we had been obliged to make, its weight was growing and would grow faster still in the future. In the first 14 days of September we had dropped 5000 tons of bombs in nine raids. The Germans themselves had given up trying to conceal the damage. An officer of the Luftwaffe, broadcasting from Berlin, had said: “The damage which the enemy is doing to Germany cannot be denied. It is extraordinary and extremely great. We must admit this fact.” The Minister said, however, that in considering the achievements of the Bomber Command it must be remembered that its force was yet so limited in size that only by an exceptional feat of organization, which could rarely be repeated, could 1000 bombers be put into the air at once. It was not true that the Government had held out an early prospect of frequent four-figure raids. The most that had been said was that iu a few months they would become less infrequent. That was true. But we did not have unlimited numbers of bombers. We wanted many more and the sooner we got them the sooner Hitler would be defeated. He said that the Americans were now joining in. They had much, to learn and much to teach. Their bombing had been astonishingly accurate. They would bring a mighty and shattering reinforcement to our bombing offensive against Germany.

The heaviest German bombing of the war (excluding the operations in Russia) is believed to have been against Birmingham and Coventry, on which respectively 500 and 400 tons of bombs were dropped in two-day periods, in contrast to the above figure.

R.A.F. IN RUSSIA

Hampering Attacks On Supply Route LONDON, October 27. Some of the Royal'Air Force Coastal Command pilots and aircraft who have been sent to Russia to protect convoys have been there since the summer. The convoys have to run the gauntlet of strong German forces based in Norway, and air reconnaissance and longrange fighter escort have proved of great value in spotting and attacking U-boats. The non-stop flight from. Britain to Russia in itself was au epic. The long daylight in these regions means that reconnaissance is continuous. So far, the British pilots have been in no spectacular battle, but the presence of the British aircraft, it is stated, has resulted in the keeping of powerful enemy forces inactive and has forced the enemy to rely on torpedo-bombers as spearheads of his attack.

UNIQUE FEATURES

British Mosquito Bomber (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, October 27. Details of the new British highspeed reconnaissance bomber, the De Havilland Mosquito, have been revealed. It is unique among contemporary operational types, in being of wooden construction. It is a twin-engined monoplane powered by Rolls Royce engines, which are fitted to three-bladed D.M. Hydromatic air-sreews. The engines are underslung in clean-lined nacelles. The design is excellent, with a . beautiful appearance, giving an impression of high speed and extreme manoeuvrability. The simple wooden construction lends itself to widely-dispersed manufacture. . The armament may consist of lour 20-mm. cannon and four .303 innchineguns. The wing span is 54ft. 2im, the overall length 40ft. Diin., and height, with the tail down, 13ft. 3in. lhe undercarirage and tail wheel are retractable. The Mosquito lias been largely developed from the famous De Havilland Comet, which won the MacRobertson air race from England to Melbourne in 193-1, but it is bigger, more powerful, and much faster—not only the fastest bomber ever built, but one of the fastest aeroplanes. Already it has penetrated far into Germany in daylight, to bomb important objectives with precision.