Evening star., 1943-09-26
Air Fleet
Continued From Page c-l0


by railroad or maritime vessels. Air
power cannot fight at all unless it has
adequate surface bases. supplied and
protected by land or sea forces.
If air power still has long distance
to go in strategy and tactics. 1t is most
backward of all In the third area Of To-
gistics. This is not surprising, since its
function as a carrier of troops and sup-s
plies has arisen only during the present
war. Tremendous strides in that respect
have been made by the Army and Navy
both; and the preservation of Australia
from conquest is generally imputed to
system of air transport which was hast
lily improvised after Pearl Harhor.
The fact remains, despite its breath-s
less speed, that the airplane, as car
rier, still lags far behind the lowly freight
gondola and the humble ocean tramp.
1t cannot do the job of sea power in
transporting large armies across oceans
and keeping them supplied. BY and
large, 1t is unable to support its own
bases with fuel and maintenance equip
ment. Still in the future lies the con-.
veyance 'of as much as one division Of
troops and their gear by means Of pow
cred air transports or glider planes. .
Hampered by Weather.
Air operations may be grievously ham,
pered by weather and fog, as in the Aleu-.
tians; by darkness, as at Salerno, and by
character of terrain, as in the case of
Sicily, Kiska and the jungles of New
Guinea. Striking at night when there
was relative immunity from aviation.
German armor came within an ace OF
splitting the Salerno bridgehead in two,
In sthe hillsides of Eastern Sicily the
Nazis dug caves which were largely se-
cure against vertical bombing. Bereft
of air support of their own, they fought
successfully until they were at the point
of being nipped in the pincers of ground
forces closing in from two sides.
1t is conceded that the Japanese In
Kiska, in similar hillside shelters, could
have held out indefinitely against air
bombardment alone. On Attu, it was
necessary for infantrymen to dig the
Japs one by one out of their caverns
and foxholes. The evacuation of Kiska,
Army spokesmen declare, cannot be
ascribed to air assaults. One explana-
ton offered is that the death of Admiral
Yamamoto ended the reign of fanaticisn1
over Japanese operations, and that his
successor, Admiral Minechi Koga, ap-
pears willing to liquidate any adventure
that has become hopeless. At Salamaua,
likewise, instead Of making last-ditcf
stand, the Japs took to their heels.
The relative irpmaturity of aviation Is
best understood, perhaps, in the light
of wild fluctuations in the theory as to
its combat employment which have
taken place during the last four years.
The world was stunned and hypnotized
by the rapid ease with which the new
German ground-air team crushed Poland
and then sliced France into ribbons.
The military tradition of the Reich Is
that Of the Prussian Army. Airplanes
were used in the blitzkrieg as an adjunct
of ground forces. They were regarded,
In particular, as extended artillery.
A revulsion which went so far as to
question the validity of air power itself
came with the defeat of the Luftwaffe
in the battle of Britain. The Royal Air
Force was numerically inferior, but 1t
had developed as an Independent arm,
with no inhibitions as to land or even
naval control. A small air-minded fleet
conquered larger one which was
ground-minded. Before relinquishing
the enterprise entirely, Goering's airrnen
were compelled by their losses to give up
daylight bombing and resort to indis-
criminate terror" raids by night. These
were driven home with devastating ruth
lessness, but failed to strike Britain to
its knees, or even to impair materially
its Industrial production.
Lost 1,1o0 Planes.
The German conception of air power
was seen at its worst during the British
advance across Cyrenaica in June, 1910,
under Gen. Wavell. The RAF was able
to oppose only handful of obsolete
planes to large and modern Italian
air fleet. But the latter was under di-
rect control of the ground forces, and
was subject to call by local commanders.
AS result, it was split up into penny
packets" which the RAF, operating as
true air force in concentrated mass,
was able to destroy in detail. The enemy
lost some LOO aircraft, and Mussolinis
vaunted sky armada suffered a blow
from which it never recuperated.
Air Vice Marshal Cunningham, then
commanding RAF units in the western
desert, took over the American notion
OF bombing enemy installations far in the
rear. He also accepted the German
tactical doctrine of using air power to
attack enemy surface forces at and near
the line of battle contact-but with an
important difference.
The Nazis practiced "air support Of
ground forces. Cunningham changed this
to "air cooperation" Even while fight
ing in partnership with foot troops the.
Raj remained essentially an inde-
pendent organization, operating as
whole under an air commander.
Such is the form of operation now suc--
cessfully employed on the Anglo-Amer-
lean front. 1t has been carried step
onward by separation of the air force
into tactical" and strategic" COM
mands. But this compromise is regarded
as only one stage of evolution by far
sighted theorists in the War Department.
They envision not an independent de-
partment of air, but an overall depart
ment OF defense, with Army, Navy and
air divisions of equal rank. They fore
see true general staff, composed of