The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 1918. OUR AERIAL OPERATIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 July 1918, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 1918. OUR AERIAL OPERATIONS.

Evidence is accumulating that the Allies are gaining an ascendancy over the enemy in the air. On the actual battle front they are givingthe Germans no peace and doing such damage to their dumps, billets, camps, and communications as to seriously interfere -with and delay the next offensive stroke. In actual lighting, the Allies seem to have daring aud skill that the Germans cannot match, that is, if we may rely upon the reports we get from day to day—and there i« no reason to doubt them. It is results that count, and measured in this way the Germans seem to lose three machines to our one. s§ut the Allies are not content

with aerial operations on the bak tlefield. They are daily engaging in raids over Germany, bombing the big manufacturing towns and important railway centres, and delivering what arc described as telling blows. In consequence, the German people arc becoming greatly alarmed, and no doubt they now deeply regret the initiation of the policy oil bombing cities by their own airmen, whose deeds in London and elsewhere they applauded so enthusiastically not so long ago. Their clamor for protection from the visitations of the British bombers lias had the effect of transferring to the German towns many airmen and anti-aircraft guns needed at the front by the Germans, and the clamor for additional protection is growing more intense. The British airmen adopt different tactics to their adversaries, who generally sweep over England at night time. The British fly in strong squadrons and attack the German towns in broad daylight, as if to challenge the German artillery and airmen to do their worst. The attacks are not intermittent either. Upon some points they appear to be almost a daily occurrence, and the remarkable feature is that the airmen escape with such small losses. It has taken time for the Allies to develop their air superiority, but they have been working along sure and comprehensive lines, and when the Americans are able to participate in full force the Germans will begin to realise what they have brought upon themselves. Until a few months ago, Germany's production of machines was equal to the Allies, but now Britain alone' is building more than Germany, whilstj France has greatly accelerated her efforts in this direction. America has had many preliminary difficulties to overcome, but is now settling down to building machines, the output already being 80 weekly, which, we may be sure, will rapidly expand until all the machines required will be available. It is known that America has thousands of men training in aviation camps in France, keen and ready to join in the fight for justice and freedom, and it will not be long before the enemy is hopelessly outmatched and becomes a negligible quantity so far as the air is concerned. Without aeroplane "spotters" the enemy's field and big guns will be blinded, as they were in the Somme fighting, when we gained temporary command of the air. But there is reason to believe that the Allies intend to make fuller use of the aeroplanes than this. They will probably be used in squadrons of immense size and weight that will bomb and machine gun and generally harry the enemy's forces behind the lines, and carry the war into German territory in a way that will convince the civilians that war, which has for so long been the national obsession, is a game that two can play at and does not always give immunity to the homes arid possessions of their "invincible" hosts. Whilst the war may not be won in the air, the overwhelming superiority that the Allies are gaining must be a factor of considerable importance in winning the war. As a moral factor the aerial invasions will have more effect on the German populace then all the propaganda work the Allies could indulge in, for the Germans suffer, from acute moral obliquity and only respond to physical treatment.