AIR SUPREMACY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 December 1939, Page 8

AIR SUPREMACY

ASSURED BY EMPIRE SCHEME SIR KINGSLEY WOOD’S CONFIDENCE RAPID EXECUTION OF PLAN IN PROSPECT. NOTABLE SUCCESS OF BRITISH AIRMEN. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day. 11.40 a.m.) RUGBY. December 19. In a broadcast on the Dominions air training scheme, Sir, Kingsley . Wood (Secretary for Air) said the scheme would put British ascendancy over the enemy in the air beyond challenge. He expressed the view that, considering the size of the scheme, the Empire had done a fine job in fixing up such an inspiring and constructive plan in such a short time. While negotiations were in progress, he added, the participating governments had gone ahead with preliminary steps, permitting a rapid execution of the great plan. In connection with Sir Kingsley Wood's announcement, informed air circles point out that not a single British fighter aircraft has been shot down in the United Kingdom since the outbreak of the war, while Royal Air Force fighter command aircraft have brought down nearly half the German bomber and reconnaissance planes engaged by them during the first two active months of war. During fifty-one engagements over British land or sea in October and November, twenty-one German raiders were destroyed, and of these thirteen were seen strike the ground or water. It is also known that many more failed to return to Germany. In all these engagements, only one British pilot been wounded, and that slightly.