A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
ISUPPOSE the biggest step which mankind could take towards alleviating the suffering caused by war would be a convention making the International Red Cross responsible for the evacuation of wounded by air. Hospital planes operated by the belligerents can hardly hope—in practice—to enjoy in forward areas the same degree of immunity which is in general accorded to hospital ships, because although they are unarmed they are not blind and no commander in the heat of battle is likely to let them carry out their humane missions without interference if these involve (as they generally will in modern warfare) flights over areas where his own forces are or may be deployed. Both sides, on the other hand, want to get their wounded off their hands as quickly as possible, for operational as well as humanitarian reasons ; and helicopters now make it possible to fly men out from virtually anywhere, without having to collect them on air-strips which would presumably have to be declared "open " and used for no other purpose. I believe most fighting commanders would be immensely relieved if they had a reasonable expectation of getting seriously wounded men flown out of forward areas in Red Cross aircraft with (presumably) neutral pilots, even if the convention was sometimes abused and although it would tend to favour the losing side and would (for instance) prolong any battle partaking of the nature of a siege. The light planes which did this sort of thing so magnificently for Wingate's forces in Burma gave an example of the extent to which evacuation by air can save life and reduce suffering ; but they, of course, were only able to do what they did because the Japanese Air Force in that theatre had virtually ceased to exist. If a convention on these lines ever did come into being it is curious to reflect that, though we should be justified in hailing it as a feather in the cap of civilisation, one of its chief results would be, by lessening the soldier's dread of being wounded and thus raising his morale in the front line, to make us all fight about twice as hard as heretofore.
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