DEFENCE IN THE AIR
The Air Defence of Britain. By Air-Commodore L. E. 0. Charlton, G. T. Garratt and Lt.-Com. R. Fletcher, M.P. (Penguin special. 6d.) THE emotional stress through which we passed in the last fortnight of September was compounded of many elements. There is no gainsaying the truth that among them was the clethent of physical apprehension, of something approaching naked. fear. That fear of ours was no greater, we can be r.ssured, than the fear felt in other countries over which the menace of air attack hung ; and we should have been something. more than human if it had not gripped us. The fact that, notwithstanding it, we braced ourselves for the terrible ordeal which was to come was the great and heartening lesson of those days and nights of anxiety and apprehension.
Fear is likely to be increased, not to be assuaged, by such a forecast of air warfare as Air-Commodore L. E. Q. Charlton contributes, under the title " The New Factor in Warfare," to The Air Defence of Britain. In it he recapitulates to a considerable extent the arguments already used by him in The Menace of the .Clouds and also in a paper on " Air Power and the Principle of Parity " which he read at the Royal Institute of International Affairs on March 1st, 1938. It is a grim form of air strategy which he foresees the nations' adopting. Its first rule is " to rain down bombs relentlessly on those objectives in an enemy's territory the destruction of which is likely to be a knock-out blow." This means " a mutual exchange of bombs on the rivo principal cities of the countries at war." The capitals will be the chosen objectives because in the reciprocal massacre " small-town folk are no good at all."
Directed at the capitals, air action, he holds, " may so defeat civilian courage that a popular cry for peace at any price arises, and the Government . . . has no option but to seek an armistice and accept what terms are given." Ruthless bombing of a great city may transform its population into " a stricken multitude," whatever the fortitude of the indi- viduals, for " it is not a question of individual courage but of mass psychology." In this dread trial of endurance we in England must be at a great disadvantage, and the attainment of parity in air strength only a snare and a delusion, for the reason that London is particularly exposed to air attack. That attack may be sudden and overwhelming. The life of the city may be " in full commercial blast, and the inhabitants in full pursuit of their lawful occasions, when the tornado strikes."
That the bombers will come through, though they may suffer losses in the process, is an axiom of Air-Commodore Charlton's doctrine. One of his chapters is headed, indeed, " The Invincibility of the Bomber." He discounts the effectiveness of the interceptor fighter, though he admits that where it can attack the tail of the bomber the odds are heavily against the latter. In general, however, he backs the bomber. His views in this particular matter may be contrasted with those of a French flying officer, Capitaine Poulain, who has followed the air fighting in Spain on the spot and who regards th, fighter as definitely having the mastery over the bomber. The fire of the modern single-seater fighter is heavier and more precise, he states, and the pilot is protected in his cockpit by the whole mass of his engine.
It is true, as Lieutenant-Commander Fletcher states in another section of the same volume, that very few of our new low-wing monoplane fighters are as yet in- service in the Royal Air Force. We should have to rely, if engaged in war in the very near future, upon the slower biplane fighters such as the Gladiators and Gauntlets. They, too, however, are formidable interceptors. It is noteworthy that more than one French observer in Spain has expressed the view that, of the Russian fighters, the Chato biplane has proved more successful than the faster but less manageable Moska monoplane ; their armament, it may be added, is the same—four machine-guns.
Air-Commodore Charlton holds that the blow at the heart, the bombing of capital cities, is the primary, the bombing of aerodromes and aircraft factories only a secondary_ aim in air strategy. Here he is in disagreement with a considerable volume of professional opinion. It is doubtful, too, whether he would win universal assent to his assertion that " the territory of our ally, France, will not be needed by our bombers for their operations." The advantage of bein3 able to strike at the great manufacturing districts in western Germany from Lorraine and the Bas Rhin, and thus to avoid the bottle-neck between Holland and Denmark for our raids into Germany, would surely outweigh the staff difficulties to which he appears to attach too much importance.
Germany, Air-Commodore Charlton points out, is unlikely to be our only foe. Italy may be ranged against us as well. In that event our position in the Mediterranean would un- doubtedly be difficult. The route through that sea, as he says, would possibly have to be abandoned by British shipping, and traffic to and from the East would have to be sent via the Cape of Good Hope. It is doubtful, however, whether his further prognostications of danger to Gibraltar and Egypt do not exaggerate the probabilities, serious though they will no doubt be. His forecast of a Spain bound, body and soul, to the totalitarian States, of a Portugal false to her alliance with us, serves to darken the picture which he paints of the wrath to come.
Is there any ray of light and hope ? Yes, and it is given in the tenth and final chapter headed " Prevention is Better than Cure." Our salvation lies in the creation of a supra- national force, mainly composed of aircraft, to be held at the call of an international authority constituted through the machinery of the League of Nations. The air force so con- stituted would have a first-line strength not less than twice that of the largest non-participating State ; it would be recruited from nationals of all the supporting countries and would be accommodated in two or more bases, the sites of which would be exterritorialised. The cost of the establishment and main- tenance of the force would be met from contributions made by all the States concerned.
If the creation of a supra-national force is in truth the remedy —the patent remedy—for the ills so luridly described in the nine preceding chapters, then are we indeed as men without hope. For, frankly, the remedy is at present utterly utopian. Nationalism, the cult of self-determination, racialism, ideologism are still far too strong to allow any such project to materialise. What prospect is there of the nations accepting a scheme of the kind in any future that is worth practical consideration ? Air-Commodore Charlton admits that, if created, the force would take five or seven years to reach the necessary pitch of efficiency ; and the avalanche may sweep down on us before then. Meanwhile—and here he comes down to solid earth— he suggests that " there is no escape from the immediate necessity to rearm, and as regards our own particular rearma- ment it should be even on a larger scale than is envisaged." We should look on Germany's growing air power as we looked on her growing fleet and build " until we come to have a lead so great that she would give 'up the race as hopeless." That, at all events, is a proposal with which few will quarrel at present, though one may feel some doubt whether it is altogether con- sistent with Air-Commodore Charlton's earlier insistence on the fallaciousness of the idea of parity in air strength. If parity means nothing, must it not follow that superiority means .
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