The Air Exercises The large-scale air exercises which took place
over eastern England last week-end have demonstrated, possibly more than ever before, the extent to which effective air-defence, and still more air-attack, are dependent on favourable weather conditions. For successful attack visibility must not be so good as to afford no cover for the raiding bombers and yet not so bad as completely to obscure the projected targets. Last week-end the visibility was so poor that a five and a half hours armistice had to be called in the middle of the operations. Nevertheless, both the civil populations in the areas affected and the pilots and other military partici- pating have at least been afforded the opportunity of carrying out their functions under semi-war conditions ; and the Air Ministry reports that " the defence organisations have been thoroughly tested and many valuable lessons have been learned." It will be some days before the Air Ministry can ascertain the full results of the exercises or the extent to which London and other targets have been demolished, but in the meantime at least some satisfaction can be derived from the Ministry's statement that " few of the raiders would have escaped without loss." But the picture is not complete without some estimate of the damage the raids might be assumed to have inflicted. We hope to publish a special article on that point next week.
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