The Demand for Aeroplanes
In an interview he gave in London on Tuesday, Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, the late Commander-in-Chief in the Mediter- ranean, declared that the naval air arm must be built up to far beyond its present strength if we were to meet the enemy in the Mediterranean on equal terms. The same day's papers contained reports of a declaration by General Stillwell, the American Com- mander of the Chinese forces in Burma, that with a little more strength on the Allied side, particularly in the air, in the Burma campaign, the scales would have been tipped the other way. The same day an urgent Chinese demand for more aeroplanes was recorded, and the need for more aeroplanes in Australia is empha- sised almost daily. In all these cases it is a question not so much of finding the aeroplanes, which are now being produced on both sides of the Atlantic in such quantities (an American expert has lately put the figure at 8,60o a month) as to meet even the im- mensity of the present demand, as of shipping to get them to the various theatres of war in time. The difficulty there is admittedly great. But one base, Great Britain, new American bombers can reach regularly by air, as they are doing in increasing numbers. The presence in London of high American Army and Air Force officers is said to portend joint Anglo-American air assaults on Germany on a hitherto unimagined scale. If that is so, and nothing seems more likely, the course of the war will be materially affected by a terrifyingly potent factor.
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