BETTER THAN IT WAS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 March 1942, Page 3

BETTER THAN IT WAS

SITUATION IN BURMA FACTORS OF AIR STRENGTH. SIR R. PEIRSE CONFIDENT. LONDON, March 15. Circumstances in the Burma campaign are vastly better than when the campaign opened, Air Marshal Sir Richard Peirse, Air Commander-in-Chief in India, declared in a statement in the course of which he said that the Allies had destroyed over 200 Japanese planes in Burma at a loss of 42 of their own machines. Speaking of the air defence of Burma and India, Sir Richard Peirse said that from the very start Britain had been able to gain air superiority in Burma, which was a very different situation from that obtaining in the south-west Pacific. General Wavell, he said, had stated that Britain would do her utmost to hold Burma. That could also be said to apply to the R.A.F. Britain’s air position was infinitely better than it was when the Burma campaign opened. Reinforcements were coming and plans had been accellerated. Aircraft for aircraft, British and American machines were superior for those of the enemy and man for man, he did not think they had any fear of the enemy. He did not underrate the Japanese Air Force, which was well trained and organised, but with anything like numerical equality the Allies could shoot their enemy from the sky, and the Japanese knew it. The first squadron of the Indian Air •Force had distinguished itself in action in Burma, Sir R. Peirse said, and could be expected to continue to do so. The latest type of British and American aircraft were sent to India and Burma and were to be equally divided between the R.A.F., the Indian Air Force and the American air Force in India. Britain, he said, was going to carry the war into the enemy’s country—into Japan. He paid a tribute to the work of the American Volunteer Group in Burma. The reputation of the Americans was world-wide. They and the R.A.F. had accounted for 200 Japanese planes, with the loss of 42 of their own. He also eulogised the work of the Dutch Air Force.

A New Delhi communique states that in Burma the R.A.F. attacked over two days an enemy army advancing from Rangoon. Attacks were also made on concentrations of enemy tanks, horse and mechanical transport and infantry.