A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THE R.A.F. has in the last week been well plastering Brest by night and day. It has visited Ostend. It has looked in at St. Nazaire. Once or twice, rather less recently, it has got as far as Wilhelmshaven, but a raid on Germany seems now the exception rather than the rule. The public is perplexed by this change of tactics, and with some reason. Weather, no doubt, has something to do with it, and no one wants to see brave men and good machines risked recklessly. But the Air Minister has promised repeatedly such intensified .and sustained assaults on Germany's productive power and communications as will materially affect the future of the war. That, of course, is what our own interest demands, and Russia at the same time is entitled to expect from us the exertion of every possible effort against Germany. It is virtually on the R.A.F. alone that we must rely for that. Actually, instead of 1941 ending with a crescendo of attack, Germany, except for a few towns in the north..west, has rarely had so long a period of uninterrupted nights. Some authoritative statement of the cause, and, if the facts justify it, a reiteration of Sir Archibald Sinclair's assurances regarding our intentions, would relieve the growing perplexity considerably.
Previous page
