AIR FIGHTING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 December 1941, Page 6

AIR FIGHTING

JAPANESE ENDER GREAT HANDICAP AIR MARSHAL DRUMMOND’S VIEW. THE POSITION IN LIBYA. (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.0 a.m.) CAIRO, December 9. “The Japanese Air Force will be under a great handicap when it meets fighters who have learned to fly in this war,” said 'Air Marshal Drummond, Deputy Air Com-mander-in-Chief in the Middle East, in an interview. “The Japanese have never had to fight in a real air battle yet and consequently have not been able to learn from experience, as our squadrons have done,” he added. Air Marshal Drummond made no attempt to discount the prowess of the enemy’s air force'in the Western Desert at present. He said: “The German pilots fighting in Libya today are a picked bunch. Though their numbers may be small, they know how to make themselves most felt. They let the Italians meet the main attack and wait to ■pick off special targets themselves. The latest improved Italian fighter planes, backed by the Germans, must not be underrated. The enemy has a far more formidable air force now than when the first German push was madu in Libya. Owing to the ease with which the Germans can obtain reinforcement'? and replacements for their pilots, the fact that numbers of their planes are announced as destroyed or damaged does not by any means indicate that their air strength has been seriously diminished.”