THE CHINA MAIL, MAY 3, 1940.
News Snack Bar
OPERATIONS IN NORWAY: WORK OF SCOUTING MACHINES
By Major F. A. de V. Robertson
London, April 16.
I HAVE HEARD complaints that the communiques issued by the Air Ministry during the last intense week have given no coherent picture of the work of the Air Force since the invasion of Norway.
They have consisted, it is complained, of individual stories about aircraft struggling home on one engine and so forth.
This is true enough in a way, but Norway German warships and trans- the complaints overlook the fact that the first stage of our operations against the Germans in Norway were primari- ly naval. It is axiomatic that when -either the Royal Navy or the Army is engaged in a series of major opera- tions it is the function of the Royal Air Force to lend it support. This support must be additional to the work of the Fleet Air Arm or, when a land battle is in progress, to the operations of the Air Component of the Expeditionary Force.
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FLEXIBLE FORCE Our main bomber force must always be flexible, ready at any moment to lend appropriate help to either of the other Services, or, if the High Com-
ports might have lain concealed for a long time had not the Coastal Com- mand provided the Navy with full re- ports of their whereabouts. These re- ports, and also reports of German ships at sea, have led to action by the Fleet, and may be considered no less a contribution to victory than was the sinking by bombers of the two cruisers near Bergen. In fact, whatever the precise value of the bomber may be reckoned when the history of this war comes to be written, there can be no doubt of the necessity to naval military operations of reconnaissance from the air.
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mand so decides, to undertake an in- "No Display"
dependent air campaign against the munitions supplies and communica- tions of the enemy.
Funeral
or
From the moment that the enemy was reported in Norway, the Bomber Mr. Terence Murphy, of Lee View- Command has been fulfilling this place, Sunday's Well, Cork, Eire, a function for the Navy with all its retired civil servant, who left estate heart and soul. It is almost certain in England and Eire valued at £4,628, that it sank one cruiser in Bergen stated in his will that he wished his fiord, and that is no mean contribu- funeral to be "simple, consistent with tion. The Fleet Air Arm almost cer- decency and devoid of display." tainly sank the second cruiser there.
The attacks of our bombers on aero-
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dromes in Norway occupied by the "CO." Pamphlets Germans have indicated a step to- wards the next stage of operations, as
the crippling of German air strength Complaints are being made in Tun- in Norway may be taken as part of the bridge Wells about pamphlets which to land campaign which is developing, are being distributed from house In this work long-range fighters have house addressed "to men about to be
conscripted." taken part.
HANDMAID TO THE NAVY. The Coastal Command of the R.A.F. is always a sort of handmaid of the Navy. From the beginning its recon- naissance work has been most ener- getic and valuable, but in the last week its energies have been redoubled, In the irunumerable deep filords of
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a
The British Navy is still keeping the seas clean and this fact is proved by the recent · Admiralty announcement that not a single British or Allied ship was sunk in one whole week, The latest weapon of the Nazi-the magnetic mine—is being defeated by the magnificent and untiring efforts of the men of the minesweepers, whose job it is to sweep the harbour channels and approaches clear and make them safe for shipping using our ports. The men of the minesweepers are usual. ly at sea 13 days. a fortnight carrying out their dangerous task, using different types of sweep to clear the seas of the underwater menaces such as the mine. Photo shows an impressive picture as members of the crew throw out one of the unita of the magnetic sweeper, showing the sinker and the floats (known as blobs). (Copyright Fox.)
Rorke's Drift
Survivor Dies
Voice Slowed
Him Down
My
Eighty-one-year-old Charles Moore, This is what a motorist told East- of Churchill-road, Norwich, who has leigh (Hants) County Justices:
"I was driving quite slowly. just died, believed he was the last survivor of the Battle of Rorke's Drift, wife was talking to me." in the Zulu War in 1879.
Moore, who became a soldier when he was 16, also fought in the Boer War and the Great War. He volunteered in 1914 at the age of 56.
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Officer Shot
On Range
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Macon M.P.
Is Dead
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The man who suggested macon as a substitute for bacon-Mr. F. A. Mac- quisten, K.C., Conservative M.P. for Argyll, is dead. He was sixty-nine.
"I have eaten it," Mr. Macquisten Lieutenant Herbert Ralph Corey, of told the House of Commons. "If the The pamphlet is printed in London the Canadian Forces, has died in hos Parliamentary Secretary to the Minis-
Wells
а Advisory pital at Aldershot. from for the "Tunbridge
wound in the stomach. Bureau for Conscientious Objectors.'
It is headed: "If you believe that war is wrong, these are your rights." A statement follows on how conscien- tious objectors. may be exempted from military duties.
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gunshot try of Food will consult any farmer's wife in Perthshire she will show him It is stated that the shot was fired. how to cure it."
He had once worked on the land. To accidentally during rifle practice at a- range...
help keep his family when he was a Lieutenant Corey was married with young lawyer in Edinburgh he bought one child.
a croft and managed it himself.
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this is
my own,
my
native
land2
YOUR SULKAGE
!
JŲ NORAZO
MING VICTOR