Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1940. FADING NAZI MOPES.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 September 1940, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1940. FADING NAZI MOPES.

ACCORDING to one of today’s cablegrams, a number of American newspapers, in reviewing the first year ol the war, agree with the recent declaration of the Christian Science Monitor” that the Nazi machine is geared for attack and must keep going forward, whereas in effect it is going backwards. “Every day that Germany is not winning’ a victory.” it is added, “Britain is winning the war. 1 hat probably is not an unduly optimistic view to take of the outlook as the northern summer runs towards its close.

While the command of the sea we owe to our magnificent Navy is and will be supremely important, it becomes ever more evident that air power, in itself and as opening- the way to action bv other forces, is likely to be a decisive factor m the war. Where air power is concerned, the position that exists today is summed up at once cautiously definitely, j ic British Prime Minister (Mr 'Winston Churchill) in the message of congratulation he has sent, on behalf of the AV ar Cabinet to the Bomber Command.

It is very satisfactory. (Mr Churchill’s message runs m part) that so many tons of British bombs have been discharged with such precision in difficult conditions and at such great distances, and that so many important military objectives in Germany and Italy have been so sharply smitten. All this is another sign and proof that the command of the air is being gradually and painfully, but none the less remorselessly, wrested fiom the Nazi criminals who hoped by this means to terrorise and domin European civilisation. Whether account is taken of the achievements of British bombers, which the War Cabinet, through the Prime Minister lias so justly praised, or of the equally heroic achievements ol the British fighter pilots by whom the enemy squadrons attacking Britain have so often been hurled back in defeat—those of them, that is to say, who have not been sent crashing to their doom —the outlook in air warfare is equally unpromising fiom the Nazi standpoint.

The stage of decision has not yet been reached. It may not yet have been approached closely, but the run of events obviously and definitely is against the Nazis. Goering s t<l < of an overwhelming air attack which would destroy British resistance and his boast that not a. single British plane would appear over Berlin, or that if any did it would at once be destroyed, are now equally a matter for ridicule. Weeks of fullpowered effort by British and German air forces can be summed up in no other way than as progressive stages of Nazi defeat.

In an effort to improve upon the tactics, of their • earlier massed attacks, in which, their losses of machines were, in the ratio of four and five to one of those suffered by the defending British squadrons, the Germans have of late supplemented mass attacks with many hit and run raids by single machines or small, formations. They have in this way narrowed to some. extent their relative losses of machines, but the comparison of losses in both machines and men, and particularly in men, still turns heavily against them.

British Air Ministry figures, for example, which notoriously understate the enemy’s actual losses, show that last week the Germans lost 293 machines, and about 700 airmen, while British losses in the same period, both in the defence of Britain and in raids on Germany, were 128 planes ami 110 airmen. '1 he Nazis thus lost much more than twice as many machines and more than six times as many airmen as Britain. This is not by any means the whole story. Satisfactory assurances are offered that enemy aircraft are nowhere doing' substantial military damage in Britain, and that much of their bombing, though they are destroying a good deal of residential and other property and killing or injuring a good many civilians, is ineffective. On. the other hand, there can be no Question as to the destructive effect and military importance of the accurately directed bombing that is being relentlessly extended by the British attacking squadrons. The story of air warfare to date is that the enemy has been and is being outclassed heavily both in attack and in defence.

Account perhaps should be taken of the possibility that still more formidable enemy air forces may be thrown into the scale, but each day that passes in existing conditions casts doubt upon the ability of the Nazis to alter the tempo 01. the air warfare to their advantage. Obviously, if they are possessed ol’ effective reserves, they have nothing to gain by holding them back. Their failure to deliver an effective blow at Britain ■already has doin' a good deal to weaken and minimise the effect of their sweeping success in land warfare and nothing is more certain than that if the war runs indecisively into the coming winter, the return of fine weather will find Britain anil her Allies relatively far stronger in the air, as well as in other respects, than they are at: present.

Germany has long been doing her utmost in building up her air forces, but in Britain ami the Empire the (raining of airmen is expanding enormously. So, too. is the production of planes in Britain, the United Slates, Canada and Australia. The brief remaining period ol fine weather in the northern hemisphere represents for Germany a time of vanishing opportunity. Bailing to turn that opportunity Io account, she must expect Io find herself faced later by air forces increasingly superior in numbers, as well as in quality, capable of establishing command of the air, ol extending decisively the cllect of the naval blockade and of opening the way Io the operation of (he offensive land forces which Britain is actively organising. This, of course, assumes that there will be no slackening, but rather an intensification, of the ungrudging and. full-powered war effort to which all parts of the Empire are committed.