The Defence of Airfields
Lord Trenchard made a powerful speech in the House of Lo last Tuesday, in which he put in a proper perspective the q tion of the defence of airfields, and what have been called " lessons " from Crete and Greece, and more recently fr Malaya. He pointed out that in none of these cases were airfields lost through lack of local defence arrangements. In Cr and Greece they were lost because the enemy had vastly sup air forces, which enabled them to win the battle in the air a the aerodromes and as a result seize the area round them. Malaya they had to be evacuated because the enemy advanced superior force, and this is what happened to the Axis aerodro in Libya. He insisted that the true defence of aerodromes this country was the responsibility of the short-range fight From this criticism, which is irresistible, the conclusion se to be that the real lesson of Greece, Crete and Malaya is we had not enough fighter 'planes nor enough bases from w they could operate ; though it should be added that in Gr and Malaya even those would not have been enough if the en ground-forces had been able to dislodge ours from the neigh hood of the airfields. In this country, should the enemy succ in capturing a few aerodromes by surprise, our own Air Fo should soon be able to make his position there untenable. would be a great mistake, however, if such considerations led to neglect the local defence of aerodromes. Much damage confusion might be caused by the temporary seizure of even few airfields.
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