OMINOUS FOR HITLER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 January 1943, Page 3

OMINOUS FOR HITLER

DECLINE IN GERMAN AIR STRENGTH VISIBLE EVIDENCE IN INFERIORITY BRITISH AIR MINISTRY SURVEY. GROWING ALLIED SUPERIORITY. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 11.20 a.m.) RUGBY, January 8. Hitler faces 1943 with the inescapable and ominous fact that his aircraft production has reached its zenith and may even be declining, while that of the Allies is not yet at its peak. If, as many believe, says the Air Ministry news service, supremacy in the air is the key to success, then the key has been wrenched from Hitler’s grasp and is in the hands of the Allies. In the year just ended, it is added, German commitments have increased until it is beyond the power of the Air Staffs adequately to meet them. Today less than 50 per cent of the German Air Force remains in Russia. The Germans are short of fighters and are being forced to use bombers for supply purposes, instead of on offensive operations. Aircraft have been withdrawn from Northern' Norway, leaving the force there insufficient to obstruct the passage of convoys to Russia qnd to maintain an effective offensive against Murmansk and Archangel . More than 50 per cent of the Luftwaffe is in Western Europe and the Mediterranean, but the Germans are completely outnumbered in Northern France, Belgium and Holland and are short of night fighters to intercept Allied raids on Germany and Northern Italy. Only a token force can be mounted to make occasional raids on coastal targets in Britain, for the provision of home propaganda. In effect, the function of the whole of the German Air Force in Western Europe is entirely defensive, bombers having been withdrawn from offensive roles to act as night fighters and to protect convoys and transport supplies across the Mediterranean. The Luftwaffe is hampered by the weakness of the Italian Air Force and is now unequal to its many tasks and is being forced more and more on the defensive.