1939-08-10 — Page 6

6

THE HONOKONG Telegraph, Thursday, August 10, 1939.

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August 10, 1939

On Guard

HE demonstrations by Bri- THE

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 1,800 planes have taken to the air in mass. attack and defence on a scrie

-Strube in the "Daily Express".

IF BRITAIN WERE ATTACKED-

by

AIR

COMMODORE

L. E. 0. CHARLTON

C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O.,

who is leading expert on air defence and modern war- fare.

Has had wide experi- ence in the front line as well as, an the General Staff. Was Chief Staff Officer of the RAF. In Iraq, and bas been air attaché at’Washing- ton. Author of several books on air warfare.

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Mobilisation of the Reserve

fect 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 slgulicant than the scope of the manoeuvres is the fact that they have started this year several weeks carlier than is customary. In short, these vast displays of aerial and naval power coincide with the

period of the year when peace for war may be decided.

man-

The British combined 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 The decides for peace, the British manoeuvres will run their course and the participants will go home again. If he decides in favour of now adventure in aggression, at least ho 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.

CAUSES

R.A.F. and the Blitzkrieg *

THIRTEEN hundred Royal Air Nor is this ali..Developments are Force planes are participating this taking place in the Dominions, week in Lhe 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 moderni R.A.E.

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 ceased and our Air Force was the Arst 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.

.

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 arrive with the completion of the mont of Brazil.

It was during in revolt in. Soo Paulo, and although the robels had captured the town they were losing steadily, and It was obvious, thất their cause was lost.

I heard B1 cursing in English.

with a pronounced Scottish accent,

so I paused in my cautious crawling behind the barricade and asked what he was doing. Bill just. grinned.

I reached the comparative safety of ļ a shop, and was reating there for a moment when Bill came in. He was 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 o 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 had no right to be taking part in an affair which did not concern him, he became annoyed. Darn it all." he said, "it's 50 to 1 against the rebels, The Government has sent up fresh troops. The rebels haven't a change! I couldn't help feeling they needed

some help."

Tie wholly Atting, there- fore, that the coming of age of the R.AF. should

programme as originally con- ceived, equipping the national de- fences with a Metropolitan Air Forco which numbers 1,750 first- Hine aircraft of modern type.

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

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

its can maintain 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 scientiae ingenuity can devise, the training establishments are full, and recruits are pouring in.

S

UPPORTING the Regu lar units aro many auxiliary and volunteer formations calculated at one end

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

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

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

Over there they are pinning their faith on the "blitzkrieg," as they call it, or a lightning war, and the German whicels of Industry are turning on that account alone. Wo 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 iself in armour, which is as highly indus- trialised as we ourselves, which has n labour 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

¿nimumi

German for

a lightning war

efforts will rebound on their own hends.

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 disloenting

effect of internal hurry which war brings in train it is likely to do much less,

E, on the other hand. provided we survive the first resounding blows. can speed up our machine with the

Ho sald some other things, too, and I began to understand. "So.". I said, "You are a champlon of lost causes." Bill looked like an uncomfortable schoolboy, and murmured something immediately to replace casualties, prolongation of hostilities and have about "the underdog."

I did not see Bill for some time after. But I read about him. A British subject was arrested in Buenos Aires for obstructing the

and at the other to provide a mass reserve which after further train- ing may be drawn on to fill the gaps.

Man-

police in the execution of their duty to China to help to defend and assault. It

for

of churia. was Bill.

wax only, excuse course, and his

After that I neither saw nor heard that there were three policerpen try-of him for a long time. I did her Ing to arrest one men and using of him, finally, back here in Scot- physical force.

land. He was working heroically to level for national peace organisation! I months was somewhat puzzled by this until I realised. that here was another cause likely to be lost. Years after I heard of him being Time passed and I met him again. mixed up in another South American He was as full of enthusiasm as ever, revolution, and again he was on the He was off to Spain to fight for the losing side. And once I got a letter Government. I could not resist, ask- from him when he was on his way PLEASE Turn To Pago 7.

Bill had just "Joined 'In things a bit. He spent three in on Argentine jail for that.

1 running smoothly on top gear when the other is creaking badly. Our resources are limitable.

Confronted with a altuntion 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 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 Intely 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 too late now to build up our

alr power to anything like equal- ity with that of Germany, let alone

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

All we 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 50as..

N

'OW, in

necessity

our

peculiar properly

1

balanced air force is matter of delicate adjustment, for we are vulnerably situated and our 'capital lies on the threshold of the country. "It is our base of opera- tions and must, at all costs, 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 reprisal. The enemy is Just as apprehensive of air attack as we are, 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.

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

T

HIS cannot be if it is mainly designed to meet the raider overhead and Our stop him getting through. base of operations must have, of course, sumclent fighters, but there are other means of protecting it, auch as by anti-aircraft fre, the balloon barrage and reliable forms of ARP.

Air warfare has cruel logic of Its own.

We must expect to be knocked about as long as the enemy has power to deliver the blows, but the extent of his neti- 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 Vates which are now agreed to.

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