Evening star., 1943-11-24
Smashing Of Berlin
May Be Turning Point
BIZ Mai. Georoe Fieldino Eliot.


Berlin will be read with profound salts
faction throughout the United Nations:
nowhere, we may be sure, with greater
satisfaction than in London, for British
bombers are inflicting on Berlin the fate
which the German war planners had de-
signed for the British capital.
There are several features of tactical
interest to be noted in the early reports
OF the attack. which we may hope will be
supplemented with further detail later.
One OF these Is the use of flares dropped
by Pathfinder planes to guide the bomb
ers and illuminate the target area. These
flares seem to have been of an improved
type, which not only gave superior tar
get illumination to types previously en-
ployed, but also reflected a glow on the
low-hanging clouds which served as a
guide to arriving waves of bombers COM
ing in above the clouds. This suggests
how considerably improvements in tech
nique are overcoming the restrictions
which weather and visibility conditions
formerly placed on the operations of
strategical air forces. 1t Is further to be
noted that severe icing conditions were
met with and overcome.
Another point of even greater inter-
est is the fact that over 1000 tons of
bombs were reported dropped with a
loss Of only 26 bombers. Readers of
tnese articles will recall that last Au-
gust, found it necessary to invite at
tention to the increased cost of the
bombing attacks on Germany, in terms
OF bombers lost as against tonnage of
bombs dropped. which is the real cri-
terion of the price paid, for the inflic-
tlon OF a given amount of damage on
tne enemy. While the average rate of
loss for the year up to and including
the great attacks on Hamburg at the
end OF July was somewhere in the vi
clnlty OF 30 tons of bombs dropped per
bomber lost, in some of the major Au-
gust attacks the German defense had so
stiffened that the attacking forces lost
oomper Tor every 30-40 tons of bombs
dropped. This seems to have been due
to increased German fighter production
to some extent, but also to a switching
OF lighters from the Russian and Medi-
terranean fronts to the defense of
western Germany. At that time. I
raised the question as to whether this
increased German defensive power was
just flash in the pan, a temporary
gain which would be Offset by continued
destruction of German fighters in the
air and of fighter production facilities
on the ground, or whether it might prove
to be steadily increasing German de-
fensive power purchased at the cost of
the abandonment of bomber production
altogether; in other words the abandon
ment of all offensive power and purpose
in the air.
Recent increases in the ratio of bombs
dropped to bomber losses tend to support
the f1ash-in- -the-pan theory. In this
big Berlin attack, for example, the ratio
is well back toward that OF the early
part of the year: About II tons of bombs
were dropped on Berlin per bomber re-
ported lost, presuming that the early
hgures will not be substantially reversed
in later communiques. This tendency, If
1t continues, Is more than encouraging:
Az may PAoNC W NC OIlc Ol lIlc decisive
turning points of the war. Up to this
time it has been question of ma jor i'm
portance whether the Germans by short
ening their distant fronts, by abandon
ing most of their bomber production,
and by switching from the construction
OF mobile field artillery Cat least in part)
to that of antiaircraft artillery, could so
increase their defensive power as seri-
ously to reduce the scope and scale of
the bomber attacks against their vital
centers. In other words, could the
bomber smash this German defensive
power at scale greater than the Ger
man attempts to increase it could pre-
vent? 1t would be idle to contend that
single great attack on Berlin proves
anything definitely one way or the other;
but 1t Is certainly significant, and If the
trend which it suggests continues, We
shall have attained the equivalent of
major victory on the battlefield.
Copyright. 1943. N. Y. Tribune, Inc)
'lncomporobIy Cheaper