PEAK YET TO COME

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 September 1940, Page 5

PEAK YET TO COME

EXPECTATION OF HEAVIER RAIDS AFTER WEEKEND OF INTENSE ACTIVITY. ENEMY FAILURES NOTED. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, September 2. Aerial warfare over Britain reached its most intense pitch during the weekend, but in the view of informed observers, the peak has yet to come. In the meantime there is close discussion in the Press of the enemy’s change of .tactics.

On August 8 Germany opened her intensive air attack on Britain. The date may have been chosen in the (hope, possibly considered by Germany as a certainty, that the anniversary of the day in 1918, which was described by Ludendorff as “a black day for the German Army,” might be a red-letter day for the German Air Force 22 years later. The tactics employed by the Luftwaffe, however, (have failed to fulfil expectations, and the method of mass attacks by bomb'ers was soon found to be so cosily that the week August 8 to August 15 may now bo said to have been a black week for the German bombers.

The technique adopted during that week, though different in degree, was the same in kind as that so successfully put in operation when the Luftwaffe was working, as it was intensively trained to do, in close cooperation with the army. The result was entirely different. It almost appeared as if, deprived of the army, the German Air Force was put off its stroke. It was a fresh experience for this force to work as an independent arm employing new tactics which, as shown by the R.A.F., depend for success on a nice balance of team-work and individual initiative. NAZIS TRY NEW TACTICS. As a result, the German air command appears to have hurriedly changed its plan of operations, and there followed a week of comparative quiet. The aerial campaign reopened with a series of night attacks—a method hitherto rather decried by German air strategists, These attacks would seem to have had a triple purpose: first, to inflict damage on industrial plant; second ,to give much-needed training in night flying, which up till then had been thought . largely unnecessary; and third, to disorganise civilian life by robbing the population of sleep. For this last purpose a small proportion of bombs was dropped nightly on or near centres of highways and concentrations of the population where there are no military targets of first-rate importance.

Daylight raids in mass were also resumed, but the number of bombers was reduced, while the escorts were greatly increased. For instance, in an early raid this morning a formation of 20 bombers, which included two big fourengined machines, was according to Press reports, accompanied by an exceptionally numerous escort, including many two-engined fighters, thought to be new Messerchmitt Jaguars. It remains to be seen whether this hew method will have greater success than the previous ones. The raids of the last few days so far have resulted in a reduction of the proportion of enemy machines shot down to those lost by the R.A.F. Numerically, the R.A.F. losses are not greater than hitherto; the German Luftwaffe losses are less. In the view of experts, however, the German Air Force seems no nearer being able to pierce the British defences, and it is confidently expected that the increasing co-operation between fighters and anti-aircraft guns, coupled with improvements in machines. will shortly once more result in the losses of three or four to one which marked the first phase of this quite new type of warfare. Meanwhile, the proportion of losses in personnel remains about seven to one in favour of the R.A.F.

SATURDAY BATTLES EIGHTY-EIGHT NAZI PLANES DESTROYED. ELEVEN BRITISH PILOTS LOST. LONDON, September 2. It was officially announced tonight that full reports of the weekend air battles over Britain show that three more enemy aircraft were destroyed by the R.A.F. on Saturday than was previously ascertained, making a total for that day of 88.

Cne R.A.F. pilot who was previously reported missing on Saturday is now known to be safe, so that the number of R.A.F. pilots lost in Saturday's battles was 11.