NOTES ON THE WAR

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 22, 26 July 1945, Page 6

NOTES ON THE WAR

MAN AND MACHINE

WHICH SETTLES THE ISSUE?

I The concentration of Allied air power on Japan, in which the British Fleet Naval Air Arm is now playing a part and in which the R.A.F. is scheduled soon to join, has reached, according to Lieut.-General Eaker, Commander of the U.S. General Army Air Force, in today's news, "approximately the tonnage the combined British and American air forces dropped on Germany, and by spring Japan will be receiving far more punishment from Super-Fortresses than Germany ever took." Will this record air blitz on Japan by itself force the Japanese into unconditional surrender? If it does, the Douhet-Mitehell-Sevefsky theory of "victory through air power" may be regarded as proved. • The theme of victory through air power| with special reference to the Italian general, , Giiilio Douhet, the pioneer of the theory, was discussed in this column last week. Since then the Anglo-American air onslaught on Japan has been stepped up to a degree that will soon pass the 185,000 tons a month dropped on Germany in the penultimate phase of the European war. There are signs in the diplomalic world, glimpsed at Potsdam and augmented by rumour, that something in the nature of tentative moves for peace are in progress. There is a coming and going^of heads of all round the world. ..Admiral -Mountbatten flies from his SEAC headquarters—wherever, they are now—to Manila to see General MacArthury Next he is reported at Potsdam among the leaders of the Allies gathered there. Then he flies to London. Similarly American chiefs are moving. It looks as if something is in the wind. What Wins War? Now, what is winning the war against Japan? Is it the air assault on the home islands of Japan, in which, apart from naval bombardment of coastal targets, air power alone is engaged, whether the aircraft are carrier-based or land-based? Can a nation be pounded into submission by a rauv oi bombs and incendiaries? If so, what about Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Burma, and the Philippines just lately, and Borneo New Guinea, and Bougainville still? Could air power alone conquer such rountries, or did it? The answer could hardly be in the full affirmative. Air power played a greater or lesser part according to conditions, but it was certainly incapable of doing the whole job in these places. „ t . , Nor did air power do the whole 30b in Europe, though it was almost certainly, as the Germans admit, the deciding factor in the long run. Air power is a large part of the mechanism of modern war, but., the process of mechanisation has extended m every direction, until there are pepple who begin to assume that the human element, above all the animal element, is out of date. For instance, there was a certain amount of amusement over the news that in the last stage of the. war in Europe the Germans were replacing their blitzkrieg machine with horse and wagon. In a letter to the "New York Times" Brigadier-General Henry J. Reilly, of the United States army, counters the notion that _ such methods of transport were simply "ersatz" in the German army. "These horse-drawn vehicles," he says, 'are typical of those used .by the thousands by the German army throughout the war. They are not a means of transportation the Germans were driven to use because of lack of fuel to operate motor vehicles." Erroneous Ideas. General Reilly holds that Allied military policy in the war in Europe was dominated by public opinion founded on erroneous ideas as to U) how blitzkrieg was fought and with what; (2) the power of long-range bombers to destroy the enemy's ability to fight, and (3) that the speed of motorised material always means greater mobility in the face of the enemy than is possible with men and animals on foot. Blitzkrieg was not fought primarily with tanks supported by aeroplanes, commonly called the plane-tank team. In the defeat of France in 1940, he says: "The initial German 'attack was made by 125 German divisions,, of which only nine were panzer (tank) and approximately. 10 motorised divisions. The , balance were ordinary divisions of infantry- marching on foot, carrying'their rifles and packs and supported by artillery, which was horse-drawn except the anti-aircraft and a few long-range guns, with horsedrawn supply trains. The approximately 75 additional German infantry divisions in reserve at the beginning of the attack were of this same type. These infantry divisions were actively and continuously engaged against' the French and other armies in the west. Without them victory could not have been achieved. Bombing" Not Decisive, "Public opinion started with the belief that long-range bombers could produce decisive victory. They were fed widespread and continuous propaganda to this effect.1 Those of us who knew from battle experience in Europe that this was not true were practically denied a hearing. This belief was the main cause of long delay in our invasion of France, which should have been timed to correspond with the German defeat at Stalingrad or shortly thereafter, when Germany was committed to the maximum extent in Russia. While yielding to a limited extent, in that it is now'admitted that some ground troops are necessary, just as a bird dog is useful to pick up the carcass of the bir,d after the shotgun has brought it< down, the idea is still so prevalent that our total armed forces are out of balance. This,' because the number of men assigned to aviation is far too great by comparison with the ground forces. "The Russians fought the Germans for nearly four years with a much greater number of infantry divisions than we brought to bear on them. This, with direct support of these troops by their aviation and almost no longrange strategic bombing. • Had the Russians also relied on long-range bombing, with the ground troops occupying the position of the bird dog, Germany would still be fighting and probably would be several years away from defeat. Where Machine Fails. "Eight years in the Orient and twelve in Europe have given me the opportunity to study the terrain in each of these war. theatres and thus enable me to make a comparison. The terrain in which we have to fight Japan on the whole is highly unfavourable to mechanised forces. In fact, there are many places in which such forces cannot go at all. The soldier on foot or mounted on a horse and supplied by means of pack animals is essential. The Japanese army was primarily organised, armed, and equipped to operate in such difficult country. In Italy we soon found that in much of the country in which we had to fight we had to use foot soldiers, improvised cavalry on horses,'and improvised pack trains far inferior to the horse cavalry and pack trains of our Regular Army. In- other words, in this type of country the motorised units which can move with such speed over good roads are not mobile at all, while the slow-moving foot soldier and animal are." General Reilly's ideas are set out here because they represent the other extreme from the Douhet theory. Probably, the truth in the present state of warfare lies between the two. One thing is certain and that is the appalling devastation of air warfare, far exceeding the destruction of past wars in extent and degree. If conquest is the object of war, the conquered country will not be worth much when victory comes, and hatred will remain.

The average 'weekly.earnings of "A" class waterside workers for the 14 weeks ended July 3 was £9 13s Bd, compared with £9 13s 2d the preyious quarter, according to a return tabled at last night's meeting of the Wellington Harbour Board. The highest weekly average was £12 4s lid, and the lowest £5 9s 2d. For the "B" class men the average weekly earnings were £6 17s 4d, the highest being £9 Is and the lowest £4 Is.