NOT BY AIR ALONE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 121, 24 May 1941, Page 9

NOT BY AIR ALONE

CAPTURE OF CRETE

CONFIDENT AIRMAN

TRIAL FOR AIR-BORNE FORCES

RUGBY, May 22

In a broadcast speech today, Air Commodore Goddard said: "The Germans are storming Crete, and you will have heard the news that once again our air forces have been withdrawn. I think you will have thought: 'Is it not curious that we cannot keep our air forces in action because of insufficient aerodromes, whereas the Germans have no such difficulty?' "That is merely a reflection of air superiority. The Germans can operate from relatively secure aerodromes and can fill them up with hundreds of aeroplanes. We cannot disperse to numerous aerodromes, because they do not exist. "The German air-borne forces are on their greatest trial, but they are not opposed by. fighters. In spite of that, they have had some costly failures, but they have apparently also had some substantial success. Grim it is, and grim it must be; but never fear. Air-borne forces by themselves will not capture that island. There is more to it than that. The defence of Crete, as far as we are concerned, must be mostly the business of the soldiers and sailoi-s, and how splendidly they are doing it, too! | "Our Air Force, meanwhile, is building up again in the Middle East, and it will give all the help it can from there. MUTUAL MENACES. "Whatever is the outcome, this invasion of Crete instead of Britain is in truth a measure of the Nazi frustration. I will not deny that air-borne forces are a menace to us here, but so is our Fighter Command to them. And the Fighter Command constitutes, as you have reason to know, the most powerful defensive system ih the world.

"Please do not suppose that some new and unexpected danger to us has just emerged. The fact is that a great