TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1940. GREAT VICTORIES WON.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 November 1940, Page 4

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1940. GREAT VICTORIES WON.

j \ IT was claimed by the First Lord of the .Admiralty (Air A. V. 1 Alexander) in a broadcast address reported yesterday, not only that the road to victory in the war was beginning to define itself, but that on August 15, September 15 and September 27. victories in the air were won by Britain which will rank wda the outstanding victories in the history of the world. With the proviso always—a proviso on which Mr Alexander himself, laid due emphasis—that the achievement of final victory in the war demands and will continue to demand whole-souled and unorudging effort, his contention as to the decisive character ol [he a?r battles to which he referred appears to be in every way warranted. . . In these battles, with some variations m tactics between the first and the last, the Germans made one attempt after another to open an overwhelming air attack on Britain, and in every instance were themselves overwhelmingly defeated. When the history of the war comes to be written, these outstanding days on which the Germans lost respectively IbO, 185 and 133°aircraft, while inflicting relatively small losses on their British opponents, will be recorded as days of decisive German defeat. The whole period from early August to date stands as one of German failure in the blitzkrieg against Britain. That failure and defeat are made manifest, not only in the vastly disproportionate figures of enemy losses—for example, losses of trained airmen in the ratio of fourteen to one —but in the fact that the enemy has only kept these losses within their present limits by the adoption of tactics which bear witness to his inferiority in fighting power (though he still enjoys a numerical superiority) and show that he is himself acutely conscious of that inferiority. It is claimed justly that the enemy’s tactics in recent weeks of tip and run raiding, mostly from extreme altitudes, during the day, together with indiscriminate night, bombing, are of no military value. The ultimate effect of these raids, as Mr Alexander observed, is that the determination of Mr and Mrs John Bull to make an end of all. that Hitler stands for has only been hardened. Moreover, tactics of evasion have not enabled the enemy to escape disproportionate losses, though these are no longer so heavy as in the days when he sought to overwhelm the Royal Air Force in open fighting. While the fighters-of the Royal Air Force have smashed the enemy attack on Britain, other branches of the same valiant service are playing their full part. Undertaking a big share of the-total task, the formations of the Bomber Command are steadily blasting their way to ultimate victory. The demand for direct reprisals on the enemy for wantonly murderous attacks on civilians does not see.m to be gathering much head in Britain. One reason may be that raids like that made on Berlin at the end of last week, though they are definitely directed against military objectives, must at the. same time be a shattering ordeal, physically and morally, for many German civilians. A better reason for an abatement of the demand for reprisals may 7 be, however, an increasing appreciation of the importance of what is being achieved by 7 the Bomber Command and of the rich promise it holds for the future. There is, it may be supposed, a growing perception that nothing must be allowed to interfere with the development of the bombing offensive on lines which will yield maximum results. In reports of bombing raids on Germany and Germanoccupied territory there is an element of monotonous repetition. It has become not only’ familiar, but a little wearisome to read the constant cataloguing of the names of the Channel ports which the 'Nazis hoped to make bases of invasion, of great railway 7 centres like Hanim and Osnabruck, of the DortmundEms Canal,' of industrial centres in the Ruhr and elsewhere and many others. There is no better way 7 of defeating an enemy, however, than by 7 striking repeated blows where they’ will tell with the greatest effect. At a price, unhappily, in gallant lives, British bombing squadrons are striking more and more powerful blows at the centres of German war industry, organisation and communication. It is a commanding fact, to be set beside the shattering defeat of the air offensive against Britain, that the enemy 7 finds himself incapable of stemming the British air offensive which undoubtedly 7 will bring him ultimately to defeat. In any 7 survey 7 of what has been and is being accomplished by 7 British bombers it becomes apparent that the German war economy 7 and organisation even now must be weakened tremendously and there is every reason to believe that before next year is very 7 far advanced the British offensive will be intensified and extended enormously. Some complicating factors may enter into the situation, such as a necessity of diverting forces to the Near and Middle East, but it is by no means clear that the enemy’s problems would be lightened in this way, or his prospects made brighter. In Britain’s total war effort, land, air and naval forces all have their essential part to play, and at a long and broad view the part of the Navy no doubt is most supremely’ important, of all. Nowhere is it made clearer, however, than in the achievements of the fighters and bombers of the Royal Air Force that the road to victory, as Mr Alexander said, is beginning to • define itself.