The Coming Air Armadas Will End

The War

DURING the grim first week in July, it seemed certain that Rommel’s panzer columns would smash through into Egypt and the Suez area. Most commentators—especially the mer curial Americans—said that the Mediterranean was lost, Alexandria was useless, the British fleet must seek safety in the Indian Ocean, Italy would regain Eritrea and Ethiopia, the backbone of Allied strategy was broken, and Germany and Japan soon would join hands across India.

It hasn’t happened yet—the British are never so dangerous as when they are fighting in the last ditch. But it may happen. Rommel is getting re inforcements, and he will deliver another of his shattering blows.

Let us assume that the present ugly probabilities of the war situation have become actual fact. The prob abilities are: Rommel’s armoured columns will occupy Egypt; the Ger man eastern armies will drive back the Russians and open the road through the Caucasus and the Middle East; Japan will strike Russia in the back by attacking through Man churia; the Germans and Japanese will try to join hands across India.

Some people—and especially those woeful American commentators—then will declare that the Allies have lost all. Those who think that way have lost sight of the outstanding lesson of the last 2£ years: Air power has

altered the course of the war, altered tactics, altered world strategy, altered human history, and given to the Allies an assurance of ultimate vie tory.

Victory will go to the side which not only can overwhelm its enemy with masses of aircraft, but can pro duce men with the intelligence and the spirit to use those aircraft success fully. The Allies can outbuild—and already are outbuilding—the Axis; and we have long known that our airmen are better than theirs.

VTAVAL and military forces are necessary for victory; but the new technique of war says that we can gain a decision with neither un less we also have air superiority, Analyse every victory that has been won by the Axis in these black years, from Norway to Crete, from Malaya to Burma, from Java to New Guinea, and you will find that our men and our ships were defeated on every occasion because the enemy had air superiority.

We were slow to learn. No farther back than December last a British Admiral, refusing to accept the new technique, took his ships within range of Japanese planes land-based in Malaya; and so the Prince of Wales and Repulse were sunk, and the way into Malaya, East Indies and Burma was opened to the enemy. But

the lesson is being learned. British planes sank the “unsinkable” Bis marck. Japanese invasion fleets were met, outwitted and finally defeated, in the Coral Sea and at Midway Island, by American planes.

If the Battle of the Mediterranean and Middle East is lost, the war will be prolonged; but its end will be the same. Its end will come when 100,000 Allied planes, manned by half a million airmen and serviced by two or three millions of groundsmen, drive the Axis air forces out of the skies and paralyse the enemy’s armies and navies. Those are not fantastic figures. They are a calcu lation based upon the logic of the events of 1939-42, and of what actually is happening to-day in United States, Britain and Russia.

The Allies are building 7,000 —perhaps 8,000 —planes per week. They are training millions of fliers and mechanics. Muddling, arguing, squab bling, they are also working mag nificently, and victory is assured.

IN years we have seen war revolu tionised. Our military leaders came into this struggle with all the confidence born of their mastery of 1914-18 technique—and were beaten in every battle in which they met the Germans, or the German-trained Japs, who had developed the tech nique of the tank and the aeroplane.

Bitterly and painfully, through these 30 disastrous months, our generals have learned the new lessons. Soon, they will be level with their teachers.

It is 1914-18 all over again. Then, for 3i ghastly years, we held the Imes bv opposing the unprotected bodies of our young men to the enemy s superior armament and skill. We had to sacrifice our youth to gain time in which to learn the art of war. Then, with the powerful and generous help of the Americans, we finished World War I in six months.

It is so easy, in these black days, to heap reproaches upon “blundering British leadership”. Under modern conditions, the most brilliant leaders cannot win wars without (a) hundreds of thousands of well-trained young officers; (b) endless quantities of the finest war-machines that modern factories can produce; (c) an end less supply of technician-soldiers trained to operate those machines.

Such a war organisation cannot be created in a month or two; it is a miracle that something like it has been created in 2£ years.

We of the British and American democracies are not people trained for war—we hate war, and in normal times we refuse even to think about it. Yet now we are inclined to curse each other because, in a few short months, we cannot go out and meet on equal terms that enemy who, for decades, has planned and thought and dreamed and glorified war.

IF we should thank whatever gods there be that, as the end of the third year of war approaches, we are becoming the masters of war tech nique, we should return even greater thanks that, to-day, we are free to learn the art of war and are not the slaves of the Hun and the Jap. It is true that, in every theatre of war, from Norway to Burma, during two terrible years, we have been sickened by blundering leadership, complacent inefficiency, and incredible stupidity in high official places. But this writer believes that all future gener ations, seeing in the clearer light of history how we defeated the im minent perils of 1939-42, will prefer to praise the high courage, dauntless spirit and eager service of the many, rather than blame the unhappy fail ings of the few.

We have come through the critical years with our freedom unshackled and our democratic institutions in tact—though God alone knows how! —and it is that fact which will be remembered when history is being written.

But something more is happening than the revolutionising of war. We thought that we saw marvellous things, during 1920-40, in the deve lopment of aerial transport. But do we realise what we are seeing in 1940- 42?

Look at the map. This is not a war between nations—it is a war be tween continents. All Europe, except Britain, is Axis-controlled, and against the Allies. All Asia, except Japan, and all the Continent of North America, and all the Continent of Australia, are Allied-controlled, and against the Axis.

To prosecute this war between con tinents, water-transport appears vital whoever commands the sea appar ently has the supreme advantage.

But, actually, neither side controls the sea—underwater craft and air craft make commercial sea-transport hazardous, and the transport of large masses of troops and equipment almost impossible. So, what?

ALREADY, trans-ocean air-trans port is taking the place of urgent shipping. This method of trans portation, as a vital contribution to an Allied victory, already is being developed, to a degree not yet rea lised. It is likely that the develop ments of the next year or two, in this direction, will mark a new phase in the history of mankind.

Much of what is happening may not yet be told. The Japanese thought that the Chinese were crippled when they cut the Burma Road. But, pending the completion of the new Assam Road, the Chinese are carrying on with supplies flown over the Himalayas from India.

Planes are carrying vital supplies from America to Britain, from Britain to Russia, from Germany and Italy to Rommel’s armies in North Africa.

This thing is becoming colossal.

Surface transport has been made difficult—so air transport is being developed to take its place. It would not be surprising, also, if regular freighting by submarines is estab lished within the next two years.

That is the broader pattern of the war. Egypt and the Caucasus may be lost, the Russians may be thrust

back, our shipping may be crippled, Japan may open a new war in Siberia —but the victory of the Allies already is being shaped, in tens of thousands of aircraft factories, upon thousands of fields where our airmen are being intensively trained, in thousands of workshops where tanks and guns are being made, in ten thousand schools where millions of technicians and guerilla fighters are learning, and practising, and waiting.

The time for moaning and pessi mism is past. It is now merely a matter of patience and planning, and hard work.