THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, September 11, 1940. HAMMERING THE ENEMY’

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24400, 11 September 1940, Page 6

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES WEDNESDAY, September 11, 1940. HAMMERING THE ENEMY’

It has often been emphasised, especially by Mr Churchill, that Germany will not’ be beaten if too much reliance is placed by Great Britain on a policy of attrition—on staying at home and playing a defensive game. Since the collapse of our last ally in Europe we have indeed had to realise the need for making a new approach to the 1 gigantic task of crushing the power of militant and successful Nazi-ism. In none of the planning to that end has there been contemplation of a victory secured merely through exhaustion of the immense resources which the enemy has at his command. It is true that by persistence in the tactics of blockade we hope to hamper, and gradually to limit, the capacity of the enemy to make war against us. It is true also that we have so far inflicted heavy losses on squadrons that have attacked the Homeland from the air, and that we hope, not without reason, that, as the weight and scope of the enemy’s air attacks increase, we shall take still heavier toll of his bombing armadas. But the principle of the offen-sive-defensive has never been ignored by those whose duty it is to direct British strategy, and as this new and critical phase of the war develops we may expect to see it applied with ever-growing effectiveness. We know what prodigies of skill and valour are being performed daily by the fighter squadrons of the R.A.F., whose task it is. to intercept raiding formations, deflect them from their objectives and punish them before they retire again to # the„ comparative security of their own bases.' That is an aspect of the purely defensive war. But we hear all too little about the offensive angle of the struggle as the R.A.F. is waging it; and, because it is normally less spectacular, the tendency may be to attach to it far less importance than it merits as a factor designed to sfrape the outcome of the Fuhrer’s challenge for world domination. Generally the information afforded by the Air Ministry is to the effect that R.A.F. bombers continue their operations over Germany and occupied territory in Europe, that objectives are or are not located, that bombs are dropped, fires started and their effects more or less accurately observed, and that , our machines either avoid or sustain loss to themselves. Behind these guarded and frequently unimaginative prohouncements there is the real story of attack, persistent and deadly, on the enemy’s sources of military power, whereby victory for the cause of world freedom is daily being brought perceptibly nearer. It is the enemy’s policy to discount almost wholly the destructive re-. suits of R.A.F. bombing raids, for at all costs he must prevent the growth of anything approaching defeatism of disillusionment within his own territory. How else, can the myth of invulnerability be maintained, except by the familiar processes of distortion and suppression? To-day it is the British claim to haVe badly damaged the vitally important docks and shipyards of Hamburg that is ridiculed in the German but the overtones of rage and frustration, the high-pitched rantings against the “weak and cowardly” British air force, tell their own tale to the neutral listener, just as they should set doubts stirring even in the minds of the subservient and ill-informed German populace. By day and night, week in and week out, as the R.A.F. squadrons fly their destructive courses over Germany, France, Luxemburg and the Low Countries, even over Northern Italy, the evidence of an implacable British purpose must be accumulating before the eyes of the German people, and the promise of the inviolability of the air frontiers of , the Third Reich must indeed be seen by them as a thing of pathetically little worth.

British ijadio commentators have even commented lately on the partial evacuation of north-western Germany—ironically by the families of army officers, State officials and others best able to seek safer refuge —and the. closing of all schools in that heavily industrialised area. The “ weak and cowardly ” British Air Force has apparently been making itself felt to an extent not revealed either by the imaginative German or the unimaginative British communiques covering its operations! So the R.A.F. goes about its grim business of carrying the war to the enemy, destroying his carefullyaccumulated supplies, impeding his industi'ial processes, shattering his port and aerodrome facilities, disrupting his communications and decreasing the mobility of his various military units. As our striking power in the air increases, so, we may believe, will the range of these attacks be widened, their frequency be extended, and their weight in devastating projectiles be enlarged. Mr Churchill has promised that our forces will not vainly await victory in their island fortress, but will “ sally forth ” when the time comes to give battle to the enemy on his own terrain. The bomber squadrons of the R.A.F. are the vanguard of that larger assaulting force. As the British Navy will keep open the seaways of the world for British commerce, so will the heavy machines of the R.A.F. continue to force their way over the enemy’s* country, bringing nearer, with every bomb that finds its target, the day of absolute eclipse for the red sun of Hitlerism.