AIRCRAFT, TIME, AND 'THE ADMIRALTY
SIR,—I am sure we should all like to support Mr. A. V. Alexander in his appeal to " the nation " to see that the Fleet Air Arm is equipped with the most modern 'planes we can get for them. Nobody can charge him with being premature, in this fourth year of war, in pointing out that the pilots have been using " old, slow, although pretty sound air- craft." But in order that we may share his responsibility (for, I take it, it is his responsibility) we should be grateful for further enlightenment. Where, in his view, does the fault lie? Is it with the Board of Admiralty or the designers and makers of aircraft or the Treasury? Or is it a mere general lack of foresight all round?
It would not surprise some of us to learn that the Board of Admiralty has been a trifle slow to realise that both time and aircraft are vital in winning this war. It is thirteen months now since ' Prince of Wales' and Repulse' were lost off Singapore for the price of seven Japanese aircraft, and eleven months since Scharnhorst ' and Gneisenau ' got through the Channel from Brest. Yet only now is the First Lord appeal- ing to the nation for up-to-date aircraft. Stiffmindedness at the Admiralty is not, however, something new. Mr. Lloyd George has just reminded us that in the last war, in order to introduce the convoy sygtem which saved us, he had to adiress the Board of Admiralty in person and then give them an order that there were to be convoys. It has needed General Smuts to come from South Africa in this war to put the U-boat menace in its true light, and only the closest collaboration of surface ships and aircraft will give us success. On the evidence it would seem to be unwise to allow the Admiralty mind to be predominant—Yours, &c.,
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