With signs of movement in the Middle East the Army
is likely to find itself rather more in the public eye than it has been. Lately, for very obvious reasons, the Air Force has been getting all the glory—because it has been getting all the opportunities, and seizing them brilliantly. There is no sort of jealousy between the services—or if there is I have never heard of it--but there are undoubtedly, and very intelligibly, some soldiers and sailors who feel that public comments sometimes almost suggest that the Air Force is doing a magnificent job and no one else is. The fact, of course, is that everyone is doing a magnificent job, the civil defence services no less than the fighting services. But while the Navy is doing its silent and for the most part unspectacular work at sea, securing the food Without which we could not live and the munitions without which we could not fight, and the Army is standing on guard against an invasion which does not happen and training itself for an offensive that cannot come yet, the R.A.F. is left with what may seem a disproportionate share of the kudos. Given their chance, the soldiers and sailors will acquit themselves no less notably—and deserve just as much recognition.
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