OCR Text |
Show Allied Supremacy in Air Result of African Lesson Borrowed Page From Germany's Book Taught Us to Coordinate Efforts of Air, Land and Sea Forces. By BAUKIIAGE News Analyst and Commentator. t L ;4$il i WNC Service, Union Trust Building Washington, D. C. Early In the war with Japan, when the little men of Nippon were swarming down the Maylayan Peninsula Pen-insula at an unbelievable rate through impossible terrain and rolling roll-ing up one inconceivable victory after another, I had a talk with a wise old military campaigner, and as a result of the conversation, sat down and wrote that "infiltration" is a word you are going to hear used a lot before this war is over. Then followed the days when the Japs pushed the allies back from Singapore to New Guinea and the men of Nippon were acclaimed as the aces of Jungle fighting, the art of filtering through territory in which heretofore human beings were not supposed to be able to fight. Today, the allies have produced the best Jungle fighters in the world. We are daily beating the Japs at their own game. And today, I was reminded of something else after another session with another anonymous oldtimer, of another time and place. He told me some things about the allied air force and I recalled the days when Hitler began to bully Europe and I realized that it wasn't so much appeasement, corruption, deceit or Nazi diplomacy then that made the Fuehrer master of central cen-tral Europe, first at Munich and later in France and the low countries, but the threatening shadow which the dreaded Luftwaffe Luft-waffe cast across the world. Today, just as the allies have out-Jungled out-Jungled the Japs, they have out-Luftwaffed out-Luftwaffed the Luftwaffe. In the latter lat-ter case, we must admit the Germans Ger-mans taught us in Africa how they did it. Triphibious Warfare We will be able to understand the Invasion of Europe much better if we understand a little more- about the two roles which the allied air force has played in modern warfare ever since we took a page from Germany's book and learned what it means to coordinate the efforts of pilot and bombardier with the foot soldier and the sailor, especially in what is now generally called "triphibious" "tri-phibious" warfare. First, it might be well to state clearly the difference between the tactical and strategic bombing. Strategic Stra-tegic bombing is directed toward the destruction of enemy strength at a distance. Tactical bombing is destruction de-struction or interruption of enemy operations in or near the combat area. Because the valuable quality of air power is flexibility, the two roles sometimes overlap, but in general, the strategic effort is a long range effort in terms of both time and space it requires the use of long-range long-range bombers and long-range fighters. Tactical bombing is the quick answer to instant needs It involves in-volves lighter bombers and usually does not require long range for its craft. There is an exception, which I'll mention later. Strategic bombing' is aimed, as we have seen, at factories, at all installations in-stallations which contribute to the enemy's war effort; railway lines, junctures, military bases, rolling stock and all means of transportation transpor-tation and communication. The targets in tactical bombing are more varied and Will be mentioned men-tioned later. The Final Phase We are interested at present in the final phase of the European war, so it might be well to describe the preliminary efforts before, and the continued effort after, the assault as-sault on an enemy shore. The Sicilian campaign is a good example. The first Job the air force had was to remove an obstacle enroute. That obstacle was the island of Pan-telleria Pan-telleria and you remember what happened to it It was flattened into surrender in two days. Then the real "triphibious" effort began. It followed a pattern which Is pretty much the one accepted for invasions since. The first step is the neutralization of the enemy air force and this is a job nobody but an air force can do. This means the destruction of airdromes air-dromes and other distant vital areas; later, providing fighter coverage cov-erage for the beaches and for shipping. ship-ping. The Germans had a thousand planes based on or near Sicily. Thirty-one of the airdromes had been attacked in the preliminary phase for a month. Rail communications communica-tions were bombed in order to isolate Sicily as nearly as possible, (the second in the list of the bombers bomb-ers functions). Messina was a chief target for it was a convenient rail bottleneck. Also the principal rail lines running down the boot of Italy were hit. Telephone exchanges and stations where radar sets were located were hit. This is another thing the Germans Ger-mans taught us in their invasion of Poland and it explains what seemed to be some of the senseless bombings bomb-ings of the little Polish villages. Radar and telephone exchanges were often set up in these villages. They were located by radio detection. detec-tion. In Sicily itself, the enemy bases had been so thoroughly destroyed that the Germans couldn't get enough of their planes in the air to interfere inter-fere with the landings. Also, the second sec-ond and third functions of the tactical airforce were well carried car-ried out: namely, the isolation of the enemy forces from their supplies and also interruption of movement of reinforcements. The fourth function of the tactical bombers, which is to break down the signal communications, I referred re-ferred to before destruction of telephone tele-phone and radio installations. Ground Troop Support The fifth is the close support of the ground troops. This was achieved in Sicily with more success suc-cess than was fully realized at the time. Some commanders of the landing land-ing troops complained that there were no fighter planes over them. Later some of these same commanders, com-manders, when they advanced and saw the wrecked armored cars, tanks and other equipment -strewn along the roads, realized that the enemy had been held back by the attacks from the air. In Sicily, meanwhile, troops were dropped behind the lines, and this contributed its share to the success of the Invasion. We know how well airborne troops have operated in the Pacific theater and in Burma. This job is listed as sixth in air forces tactical operations and includes carrying car-rying of paratroopers, running a shuttle of transports and towing gliders which land personnel and equipment (the glider pilot fights with the land forces since he can't glide uphill). We now come to the last two functions func-tions of an air force less dramatic but highly important reconnaissance reconnais-sance and the building of air bases. In the Sicilian campaign, a million mil-lion photographs a month were made so that the commander of each landing unit had pictures of every place he had to go to with his objectives plainly marked. We know of the record time in which bases have been destroyed, captured and reactivated in the Pacific theater of war. In New Guinea, a base was taken, built, manned and put into complete operation a hundred miles from the nearest allied base, and well behind the enemy lines. Thus we see the scope of air force operations, how closely they are knit into the operations of the land and sea forces; and how the allies have achieved air supremacy in Europe. But, because air forces are so elastic, they can be massed suddenly sud-denly and, therefore, actual command com-mand of the air is much harder to maintain. At a given moment the Germans who certainly do not have air supremacy any longer might be able, by heavy concentration and great sacrifice, to achieve temporary tem-porary command of the air in a given locality. The allies did have command of the air in Italy. Otherwise, Other-wise, the beachhead at Anzio could never have been maintained. As it was. supplies and reinforcements could be landed in broad daylight. On the German side, no concentration concentra-tion of men or supplies could be attempted at-tempted except at night. The shadow of the Luftwaffe has grown thin, the weapon Hitler created to enslave the world has turned in his hand. |