Evening star., 1939-09-09
BY JOSEPH S. EDGERTON.

One of the unexplained mysteries
of the European war at the close of
its first week has been the withhold
ing of the mighty air forces under
the shadow of which the world has
been trembling for the last year.
Nowhere has the air power been
unleashed. not even in Poland. where
the fighting is becoming increasingly
heavy as the invading Germans be-
gin development of the Polish main
line of resistance.
True, there have been numbers of
air raids, some of impressive size.
The nations engaged however, have
put only small fractions of their air
forces to work, the great bulk of
them remaining in reserve Awaiting
what? That is what military OBJ
servers here would like to know.
A dispatch from Poland yesterday
claimed that the Polish air feet, so
far apparently almost wholly mac
tive, lis intact" Although Great
Britain and France have been at
war with Germany a week. the great
German air force, held to be the
most powerful in the world, has been
virtually non-existent so far as
direct evidence in the allied coun-
tries goes.
Small Fraction of Force.
German aviation has been active
in, Do1
Every city and town of any impor-
tance in the western tWo-thirdS of
the country has been visited by raid
ing Nazi bombardment airplanes.
Even so, however, it is apparent that
a very small fraction indeed of the
German air force has been engaged
in this work.
On the allied side, the British
Royal Air Force has so far appar-
emily been the most active, with
propaganda flights over Germany
and neighboring countries and
bombing raids on purely naval OBJ
jectives as its main effort. The
British claim their bombing raids
have been successful. They have
been carried on, strangely enough,
without any very heavy opposition
from the German air force
For what purpose is air power be-
ing withheld? Is it because. like
some of the newer forms of poison
gases, it is so terrible a weapon that
its possessors hesitate to commit
themselves to its use to the full?
Or, as is regarded more likely by
military observers here, is it being
held as an lace in the hole''-a tre-
mendous shock force which will be
turned loose only when the surface
forces run into obstacles too power
| full for them to overcome without
losses disproportionate to the gains
which may be expected?
Believed Held in Reserve.
A quoted broadcast from Poland
in which the claim was made that
the Polish air force is still intact
promised that "the world will under
stand this before long
This would indicate that the Poles
are holding their air squadrons in
places of security as reserve to be
hurled into action only when its
main army is drawn into battle by
the advance of the Germans through
Western Poland. In other words
the Poles do not intend to waste
their air power in war of attri-
ton against the vastly more power
full German air force, but to hold il
as highly mobile shock force to
be used only in case of extreme
emergency.
Something of the sort may also be
in the back of the mind of the Ger.
man air force commander, Gen
Goering, the mo. 2" Nazi. He ha:
been quoted as saying that the
French would feel the German all
power if they continued to develop
their assault on the Siegfried Line
This, if true, would suggest that the
Germans also expect to hold theil
air power as reserve for purely
military ends.
Germans Hold Back
The Germans so far have scrupu-
lously refrained from any air &C.
tivities which would even suggest
attacks on French or British civil.
ians. Their flights over French
territory have been apparently only
reconnaissance missions.
In the past it has been generally
feared that the first week of a wal
with Germany would find Londor
and Paris rocked by bombs. Tn,
British and French have prepared
as well as they might for such al