IN THE AIR.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 April 1918, Page 5

IN THE AIR.

A few days ago "the high military authority," in his weekly review of the situation, said: "It might still be said that we are a long way from having the command of the air." Unfortunately the phrase "command of the air"' means different things to different people. One man may mean by it a bare majority of one Hying service over another; a second, that the majority is so largt. as to amount to supremacy and give its possessor power to do what he wishes, except that lie- has to fight for his rights, though without risk of losing them ; a third, that there is no opposition worth naming. The last of these is certainly not the case with the Allies, as the daily reports show. It seems that the position is somewhere between the first definition and the second. The Allied airmen, taking the official reports as a guide, have done surprising execution among the enemy, and have killed far more German flying-macliines than they have lost; but it is obvious that the Germans have a large fund of energy and skill in their flying services and that their aerial arm is not by any means swamped.

When the German Command took stock of the Somme campaign they came to the conclusion that the failure of their air service was one of the chief causes of their defeat. Accordingly they set themselves to remodel it, just as eighteen months before they had rebuilt. their fleet. They appointed a new head of the service, a vigorous young cavalry officer. They gave him, under the Kaiser, the powers of a dictator He could break an J make as he tfhose, but was to re-establish the service. He re-established it. He copied the taoilcs of the Allies and their use of airplane wjuadrons for bombing raids. He sent the Gothas to London. He pressed more and more factories into the service. He gave large orders in neutral countries. He added several new makes of machine to his fleet. He largely increased the personnel, and called for recruits from all services of flie army instead of the cavalry alone. The efforts of his energy were apparent at the front, where the German airmen, though we could master them when we wanted to, were not last year the beaten service that they were on the Somme. What Sir Douglas Haig said after the Somme is. more urgently true now than it was then. "The maintenance of the mastery of the air, which is essential, entails a constant and liberal supply of the most up-to-date machines." These the Allies are in a position to supply with America's aid. The Germans are not so circumstanced, and the effects will become more and more apparent during the next few months.