AT EARLIEST MOMENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 March 1942, Page 4

AT EARLIEST MOMENT

RESUMPTION OF BOMBING OF GERMANY ON LARGEST SCALE SIR A. SINCLAIR’S FORECAST. IMPORTANCE OF HELPING RUSSIA. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day. 10.35 a.m.) RUGBY, March 4. The Air Minister (Sir Archibald Sinclair) announced in the House of Commons that the bomber offensive against Germany would be resumed on the largest possible scale at the earliest possible moment. The Minister said: "It is true that the German bomber force has acquired ether occupations since a year ago but there has never been a time during recent months when there has not been a very substantial number of bombers within easy reach of all the cities of this country.” “Cur temporary exile from our own Chamber is a warning against discounting too light-heartedly the menace of the bomber,” the Air Minister continued, “but I feel sure , members will join me in giving credit to the R.A.F. that so much remains intact, and that Britain’s armourers can work almost unhindered by the German Air Force.” Sir Archibald Sinclair paid a tribute to the R.A.F. squadrons which had the privilege of fighting alongside our Russian allies and spoke of the increasing numbers of British aircraft on the Russian front, adding that this was not the most important way in which the R.A.F. was helping Russia. “Not only have our squadrons in Malta and Africa engaged large numbers of German fighter squadrons,” he said, “but also by fighter and bomber sweeps over North-Western France, by constant fighter patrols and activity in the same region, by fighter and bomber attacks upon shipping in the narrow seas and by our bomber attacks upon industrial Germany and targets of great importance to Germany in occupied territories, we have succeeded in keeping a larger number of German fighter squadrons facing west than the Germans can spare from their Eastern front. Coal mines and factories in Belgium and Northern France which are working perforce for the enemy have suffered severely. For five months, fo« example, the industrial activity of a wide area around Lille has been curtailed for many weeks by as much as fifty per cent, on account of dsftnage to power plants. The remarkable thing is that, although fighting over the en-, emy’s territory of course ■ has been hard, our fighter squadrons have managed to keep the balance of casualties in their favour. In offensive fighting ’ from this country during the last twelve months, we have destroyed 823 enemy fighters, compared with the loss of 537 of our own.” Saying he could hot express an opinion about the recent passage of enemy warships through the Straits of Dover, but that the official inquiry report had been completed and would immediately be examined by the Admiralty and his Department, Sir A. Sinclair said that the Straits were virtually closed to the enemy's merchant vessels by combined air action with the Navy, and only a few fast motor vessels had been able to slip through in the last five months, whereas an averange of 25 enemy merchant ships of a thousand tons or over had passed through monthly hitherto. Speaking of the Far East, Sir A. Sinclair said that despite the problem of transporting maintenance crews, petrol, bombs and ammunition, a large number of aircraft had been sent. Extreme risks had been taken to get them there. Some were lost on the way and many had been lost in heavy fighting, but reinforcements would continue to arrive in that theatre of war. There had been close and successful co-oper-ation with the Army in Burma. In the Middle East, during the six months preceding General Auchinleck’s advance, R.A.F. and naval aircraft sank some 175,000 tons of enemy merchant shipping in the Mediterranean. “To send a ship to the bottom with fifty tanks on board is a big contribution to success in a land battle,” said the Minister. “When battle was joined, British air superiority was quickly asserted. It enabled the air •forces to throw their whole weight into the land battle. The same air superiority and the same slashing attacks by British fighters and bombers upon enemy troops and vehicles supported General Auchinleck both in his advance and withdrawal.”