1939-08-10 — Page 30

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, THURSDAY, AUGUST 10, 1930.

The Sun Attacks HERE

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On Guard

Ti demonstrations by Bri- tain's armed forces Eng- land is witnessing this week are a comforting reminder that our Homeland is fully prepared and able to meet any sudden challenge from the Totalitarians,

The aerial and naval man- oeuvres now taking place are the greatest combined defence operations the world has ever witnessed. His Majesty the King yesterday reviewed over 130 warships comprising the Re- serve Fleet, whilst 1,300 planes have taken to the air in masy attack and defence on a scale that no other nation has at- tempted.

Mobilisation of the Reserve fleet alone has entailed the call-

ing up of an additional 12,000 retired naval officers, reservists | and pensioners, and it is com- puted that nearly 1,000,000 men and women have been mobilised in connection with the air defence tests.

Even more significant than the scope of the manoeuvres is the fact that they have started this your several weeks earlier than is customary. In short, these vast displays of aerial and naval power coincide with the period of the year when peace or war may be decided.

The British combined man- oeuvres are certain to be char- acterised as "provocation" in the Axis Press. Yet in fact they are the logical and neces- sary reply to the mobilisation of troops which has already taken place in Germany and Italy and is still going on. Just in case Herr Hitler or Signor Mussolini are preparing to make trouble, Britain has prepared to meet it. The decision, for peace or war in Europe rests still, as it has rested for so long, with Herr Hitler and with him alone. If ho decides for peace, the British manoeuvres will run their course and the participants will go home again. If he decides in favour of a new adventure in aggression, at least he knows what to expect.

The impressive exercises now under way (they will continue, in the case of the Navy, until October) leave no possible ground for misunderstanding about Britain's will and capacity to act.

-Strube in the "Daily Express".

IF BRITAIN WERE ATTACKED-

by

AIR

COMMODORE L. E. O. CHARLTON

C.B., C.M.G., D.5.0., who is a lending expert on air defence and modern war- fare.

Has had wide experi- ence in the front line as well *5 on the General Staff. Was Chlef Star Oficer of the R.A.F. in Iraq, and has been air attaché at Washing- ton. Author of several books on air warfare.

CHAMPION OF LOST CAUSES

SHALL just call him Bill for

I know he would hate pub- licity. The first time I saw him he was crouching behind a pile of sandbags, covered with grime| and caked blood, and blazing away with a rifle at the troops of the legally elected Govern- ment of Brazil.

It was during a revolt in Spo Paulo, and although the rebels had captured the town they were losing steadily, and it was obvious that their cause was lost,

I heard BB cursing in English, with a pronounced Scottish accent, so I paused in my cautious crawling behind the barricade and asked what he was doing. Bili just

grinned.

I reached the comparative safety of a shop, and was resting there for a moment when Bill came in. He w off duty for an hour; so we talked.

*

*

At first he did not seem inclined to explain what he was doing taking. part in the internal quarrels of a foreign country. He tried to put me off with the excuse that "It was fun," and that "he just found him- self in it."

When I pointed out that he hnd no right to be taking part in an affair which did not concern him, he become annoyed. "Darn it all," he sald, "I's 50 to 1 against the rebels. The Government has sent up fresh froops. The rebels haven't a chancet

I couldn't help feeling they needed some help,"

He cald some other things," too, and I began to understand. "So," I said, "You are a champion of lost causes," schoolboy, and murmured something Bill looked like an uncomfortable about "the underdog."

I did not see Bill for some time after. But I read about him. A

arrested In

R.A.F. and the Blitzkrieg

THIRTEEN bundred Royal Alr

Nor is this all. Developments are Force planes are participating this taking place in the Dominions, week in the greatest aerial particularly Australia and Canada, manoeuvres Britain has witnessed, which will not only make those It is, in effect, the coming of age of smaller Air Forces a powerful Im- the modern R.A.F.

At the end of the Great War the air power of Britain was supreme, but, true to our tra- dition, we began to lower our

defences as soon as hostilities censed and our Air Force was the first to suffer,

It gradually sank to fifth or sixth place, and, but for the revelation of its weakness when we were at odds with Italy over Abyssinia, it might have gone down lower still.

There was no escaping the hard. fact that we were outdated in the air, and since then we have been busy on a series of reconstructive programmes so that we might re- assume the position of an Air Power to be reckoned with.

£1.9

T is wholly fitting, there- fore, that the coming of age of the R.A.F. should arrive with the completion of the programme originally con- ceived, equipping the national de- fences with a. Metropolitan Air Force which numbers 1,750 first- Hine aircraft of modern type.

Last May that igure stepped up to 2,370, and there appears to be every hope that this new total will be reached in twelve months.

พ

Behind this frontage there will then exist, moreover, a back area, as it were, of industrial and Minis- terial activity to ensure that, in material and personnel, this first- line force can maintain Its strength notwithstanding the severe losses which are anticipated in air warfare of the future.

Bir Kingsley Wood's speech in presentation of the Air Estimates, and the full-dress debate in dis- cussion of them has displayed to the world at large an Imposing facade of British air power.

Production mounts by leaps and bounds, the types on order are as good as scientific ingenuity can doviso, the training establishments are full, and recruits are pouring Io.

S

UPPORTING the Regu

·lar unita are many auxillary and volunteer. formations calculated at one end. immediately to replace casualties and at the other to provide a mass. zesoryo which after further train- ing may be drawn on to fill the gaps.

British subject was Buenos Aires for obstructing the police in tiu execution of their duty to China to help to defend Man- and for assault. It was Bill of churla course, and his only excuse WILS After that I neither saw nor heard that there were three policemen try-of him for a long time. I did henr Ing to arrest one man and using of him, finally, back here in Scot- physical force.

Jand. He was working heroically Bill had just joined in to level for national peace organisation! things a bit. He spent three months was somewhat puzzled by this until in an Argentine fall for that. I realised that here was another

Cause likely to be lost. Years after I heard of him being Time passed and met him again, mixed up in another South Amerlenn He was as full of enthusiasm as ever. losing side. And once I got a letter Government. I could not resist nak- revolution, and again he was on the He was off to Spain to fight for the from him when he was on his way] PLEASE Turn To Pago 7.

*

.

perial reinforcement. but will convert them into reservoirs of material equipment to supplement home

manufacture.

Finally, in the background, stands the U‚8.A., likely at the very least to be benevolently neutral. with a hugo productive capacity available to us.

All this points to the belief that Gur resources are vast enough to bear down any enemy combination In the long run, and no one fealises that position better than Herr Hitler.

faith

Over there they are pinning their on theblitzkrieg," as they call it, or a lightning war, and the German wheels of industry are turning on that account alone. We can hardly hope to overtake their output in actual preparation for the stroke, for, they have gained a long lead on us.

A country which is straining every nerve to encase itself in armour, which is as highly indus- trialised as we ourselves, which has a labour

our scarcity Instead of griev ous unemployment, and which can name the day, is hard to overtake in armament production,

This fever of preparation is in the nature of a gamble, depending for success on what is hoped to be the pulverising effect of mass bom- bardment from the air. But if this hope be disappointed, then the very earnestness of the preliminary

★ German for

a lightning war

efforts will rebound on their own heads.

They will have spent themselves, before war breaks, for a machine which is geared to the highest pitch can do no more, and when overstrained by the dislocating effect of internal hurry which war brings in train it is likely to do..

much less.

W

E; on the other hand,

·provided, we, aurvive the first resounding blows, can speed up our machine with the prolongation of hostilities and have it running smoothly on top gear when the other is creaking badly. Our resources are illimitable.

Confronted with a altuation of that kind, we have to be more than careful in the composition of our air power. Logically, and long

before such a situation arises, we

should have

have imposed on ourselves

a two-Power standard in the air as

once we did at sea.

The threat of air attack by superior air power can be, as we

have

ave lately seen, a weapon in itself. It is undeniable that a sense of air inferiority, and the spectre of the bomber over France and England, enabled Hitler to call our bluff at

Munich.

It is top inte nɔw to build up our

nir power to anything like equal- ity with that of Germany, let along.

two - Power standard. while parity is merely a vague expres- sion. We let slip the opportunity when we had it in our grasp.

All wo can do now is so to adjust the balance between our fighter and our bomber forces that each can play its part in the service of our national defence, remem- bering that equally with the head and heart of Empire, which are the British Isles, we must protect its veins and arteries, which are our sea communications, and its extremities and lower limbs, which are our Dominions beyond the seas.

N

Ow, in our peculiar necessity 11. properly balanced air force is a matter of delicato adjustment, for

we are vulnerably situated and our capital lies on the threshold of the country. It is our base of opera- ilons and must, at all costa, be made reasonably secure. But not to the detriment of our bombing capacity.

Without ability to carry war to the enemy we are merely covering up and allowing him to raid us when and where he cares, without the power on our part of taking adequate

te reprisal. The enemy is just na apprehensive of air attack but if it came to his knowledge that we were develop- ing our fighter arm, purely for home defence, at the expense of our own raiding power it would re- lleve him from much anxiety on that score and enable him to con- centrate on bombing.

As we are,

The public is reassured to hear- of our growing alr power, but it presumes that it will be built up according to the needs of strategy, and with a view to knocking out the other side.

T

HIB cannot be if it is mainly designed to meet the ralder overhead and Our stop him getting through, base of operations must have, of course, sumcient fighters, but there such as by anti-aircraft are, the nte other means of protecting it,

balloon barrage and reliable forms of ARP.

Air warfare has a cruel logic of its own. We must expect to bo knocked about as long as the enemy has power to deliver the blows, but the extent of his acti- vities in that respect will depend on our capacity for returning tit for tat.

Such is the background of the colossal expenditure on air defence and of the Votes which are now agreed to.

We can produce the aircraft, wa' can enrol the men, and we have the money. too. It is only now to be Hoped that the functioning is properly understood and that, above all the bomber forco should not be denuded in favour of the fighter for the sake of an appearance of security which is false. Otherwise we may well con- gratulate, ourselves that our house will be very soon in order.

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