ONLY BEGINNING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 August 1942, Page 3

ONLY BEGINNING

ALLIED AIR ONSLAUGHT ON GERMANY? SIR C. PORTAL’S PREDICTION. DESTRUCTION OF NAZI INDUSTRY (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, August 15. “The time is not very far distant when the British and American bomber squadrons in England will be able to destroy the industry and power of Germany at a rate which outstrips' repair. When that time comes, will the average German long resist the conclusions that war is no longer profitable and the Fuehrer no longer worth following?” asks Sir Charles Portal, Chief of the British Air Staff, in an article in a special R.A.F. issue of the Chicago magazine, “Flying and Popular Aviation.”

Sir Charles, in a review of some of the problems which faced him and his predecessors, stresses the fact that Britain began the war with a numerical inferiority of one to four against, the Luftwaffe and only now had reached numerical parity with the Germans. Britain’s air resources had never approached her requirements, and in view of that she could not be strong everywhere. All she could do at first was to ensure that she was strong at essential points, and this could only be achieved at the expense of weakness elsewhere. As a result Britain met many . grave reverses which had given rise to severe criticism of the R.A.F.

“I am glad to say, however, that the situation is now quickly improving,” he said, adding that the time was rapidly approaching when the United Nations would have decisive air superiority over the Axis in all parts of the world.

Referring to the R.A.F. bomber offensive, Sir Charles says that what has been achieved in the past is as nothing compared with what is now beginning to be achieved and what, with the help of the American bomber force destined for Britain would soon be achieved.

BERLIN PREPARING ANTICIPATION OF HEAVY RAIDS. LONDON, August 15. Himmler, in his capacity as chief of the A.R.P. services, is intensively preparing Berlin for heavy raids, says “The Times” correspondent on the German frontier. Himmler’s S.S. Guards are displacing the Berlin civil police from A.R.P. work and are also displacing the wardens of blocks and even the concierges of individual houses. Anti-air raid towers are being erected and the whole system of antiaircraft gun nests is being changed, thus making obsolete the R.A.F.'s information. . Wooden barracks are being built on vacant land near Berlin so that those bombed out of their homes can be quickly accommodated. Ihe R.A.F. raids are estimated to have rendered a million Germans homeless.