AIR WEAPON

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 October 1942, Page 3

AIR WEAPON

SUBJECT TO DEFINITE LIMITATIONS MUST BE CO-ODINATED WITH LAND FORCES. VIEWS OF SOVIET COMMANDER. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, October 11. “Some British and American military authors are trying to prove that avation is the sole force capable of achieving victory, and also that land operations are replaceable by air attacks,” writes Major-General Zhuravlev. who is a high member of the Red Air Force in an artcle in the ’Red Star.’ “Ths is devoid of all sense of reality. The war will be decided by armies of millions equipped on land and as well as the air arm. The air arm must accomplish its task in co-ordination with the land forces.

“The Luftyaffe’s failure in the Battle of Britain and also at Stalingrad proves that an air force cannot secure a decsion. Avation is unable to reach full victory ,pn any front, and cannot even create a front.” General Zhuravlev said that the Italian authority Douet declared that 3,000-bomber raids would smash any city’s resistance, but Stalingrad was resisting after receiving the equivalent of 9.000-bomber raids.

The Moscow correspondent of “The Times” says that General Zhuravlev was replying in particular to the Americans, Messrs. Seversky and Drake, who are publisising the view that Germany can be smashed from the air.