GERMAN AIR FORCE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20058, 3 October 1939, Page 2

GERMAN AIR FORCE

MODERN MACHINES PLANES AND THEIR PILOTS A PRODUCTION HALT At the time of the Czech crisis reports of the strength *of the German air force reached the total of 10,000 planes, with the aircraft factories of the Reich turning out from 3000 to 4000 planes a month. That was the high-water mark of the estimates ol the new air force which Herr Hitler has called the best and the biggest in Europe; from last September there lias been a return to critical realism, and estimates have been revised downward.

To-day all the air forces of Europe are surrounded in secrecy, and some examples from Britain will show how purely speculative all writing about .hem must be. From April last the monthly list of the British Air Force uppressed a considerable amount of information which hitherto had been published, and the stations and /uncI lons of squadrons on home duty were iot disclosed. This was followed by i decision to stop the displays which nad been held on Empire Air Day, jecause of the fear of intelligence ifficers that foreign agents might obain information which had been suppressed on the lists.

New machines have long been or, he secret list; and it was only the ecent mass flights which revealed to he public how many bombers of new types were on squadron establishment. In Germany there is even greater secrecy, and some foreign ravellers who have heard much of ‘he strength of the Reich air force have returned to report that if Herr Hitler really has such masses of planes at his command there is no sign of them. This is largely because German airfields have been carefully laid out with an eye to concealment ; n pine woods, equipped with barracks hidden in the trees, with hangars of a peculiar semi-cylindrical type said to cast no shadows, silencers, drainage troubles, and few long runways. Six Thousand I’lanes Latterly experts who previouslyrated the German air force at a fairly high figure, have come to believe that it consists of, at most, (1000 planes. Some set the figure lower. There are many stories of the high crash rate on the training fields, of he poverty of the planes which are built, and the rapidity with which hey are worn out, the substitute materials used in construction, and the drain of the demand for training! n lanes on an economy which is compelled to eke out materials where it can. Some reports are of 10 deaths a week on the testing grounds, and only a few months ago Marshal Goering had to make a radio address in which he deplored the stories of a high death rate among new pilots ;which were causing a shortage of volunteers Tor the air force!

Certainly the known crash rate among German commercial aircraft is unduly high. For instance, a German commercial plane crashed in the South Atlantic on October 1 last, another airliner with 10 passengers crashed in the Swiss Alps next day, a plane lost a wing in mid-air and crashed at Soest on October 10, the Lufthansa Berlin-Bagdad airliner crashed into a Vienna forest on December 2, and a good-will plane from Germany crashed in Manila Bay on its way back to Berlin from Tokio. These batches of accidents are typical, and in mid-July, Hanson Baldwin, defence correspondent of the New York Times, declared that American sources believed that German engines were still of short life “while reports of heavy casualties figures incurred in training continue to be received. Americans discounted German speed records, which, he said, were gained in isolated “suped’ - up machines, and it was believed that, even if Germany had 7000 to 10,000 planes she did not have the pilots to fly them. Other evidence of the German pilot troubles was given by tli» London Daily Telegraph, which recently reported that Czech airmen were being drafted to German flying fields to teach the pilots of the Reich how to handle some of the 1200 planes which were said to have been obtained by the annexation of Czechoslovakia. Types in Production

The advantage of the German air force is its modernity. Virtually every ship in it is, new and able to serve with a first-line force.

Production up to the beginning of this year has been the Dornier, Heinkel. and Junkers bombers and the Heinkel and Masscrsehmidl lighters. The bombers are all twin-motored types capable of speeds of up to 300 miles an hour; a Dornier bomber with two liquid-cooled engines each of 1200 horse-power has been timed' at 320 miles an hour, it is reported. All three

bombers have approximately the same range—about 1900 miles —and can carry a bomb Joad of one and a half tons. The .1 milters motors supply between COO aim 1100 horse-power for a take off. Like the Daimler-Benz engines m the Dornier bomber, the Junkers engines are liquid cooled.) The main lighter types, the Ull2 Heinkel and ti e Me-109 Messerschmidt use the same engines as those in the bombers.

The Heinkel, with a Laimler-Benz engine of about 1300 horse-power, is claimed to have a maximum speed of •'4O miles an hour. The Me-serschmidt plane is '.ne tne which made the world’s record at an average speed, of 479 miles an hour over a measured course, up and down wind.

Can They Build Enough?

No Nazi leader has made any secret. of the fact that it is largely to L ne air force (undoubtedly a fine one) that Germany looks for a knock-out blow which will give her a quick vic.ory in any war. The threat of that air power has been used against Austria, against the Czechs, and against the Powers who for. a time seemed likely to defend the Czechs. But the ability of the Nazi air force to win that victory, if it is possible at all, will depend very largely on the ability of the German aircraft industry to build the planes necessary to keep the force at the necessary strength. It is reported that 60 per cent, of the Reich machines are bombers, and it would appear that in the work of maintaining a bombing offensive to .he extent visualised by the High Command the German aircraft industry would be set a task of great difficulty unless, which is unlikely, sufficient reserves of the necessary materials, and of the oil without which any machine is useless, are available.

Until recently the Germans were definitely outstripped in the field of engine-building, but possibly in the effort to remove this weakness it is reported that German factories have now been retooled, with the result that their production rate has laterly been lower than usual. The wastage of machines in air warfare is enormous. In ‘The War in the \ir" (the British official history of he World War) it is demonstrated rom a memorandum of Lprd Weir that to maintain 100 squadrons of 18 aeroplanes in the line, a production of 1000 machines a month, plus half as much again for home defence and craining was needed. A French estimate at the same time was that to maintain a strength of 4000 planes the monthly output should be 2400 airframes and 4000 engines. Not even a Nazi leader would say Germany has attained these figures; and not even a Nazi leader can say with certainty that, cut off from essential supplies of war materials, of which her own production is quite inadequate, she will ever do so.