Victory is Nearer

In the great air war over western Europe, the Allies are winning on every count. Many airmen now hope, and some firmly believe, that their victory will be so complete, so rapid and so far-reaching in its effects that Germany will be defeated this year.

That may be too large a hope. General George C. Marshall said flatly last week that it is an impossible and deceptive hope. But there can now be no doubt that the air offensive is helping the Allied armies and hastening Axis defeat on all fronts.

Attrition Below. Working against the Germans is a manifold process of destruction and attrition. When the war plants and stockpiles of the Ruhr blazed under night & day bombings, the Axis armies in Russia and Southern Europe lost weapons.

Some of the loss from these raids is only temporary. But at Wuppertal, Duisberg, Dortmund and many another Ruhr city, the damage has probably gone beyond any possibility of salvage.

Repaired plants or plants still intact can produce other weapons--until these plants too are bombed & bombed again. But the weapons will be late. They will be fewer. At some as yet undetermined point in this cycle of loss, they will be too late and too few. The coming of that point, with its attendant disintegration within Germany, may cause a sudden collapse of the Axis. If not, this war will be won as other wars have been won, by battle in Russia and on the invasion fronts of Europe.

Attrition Above. It was clear that the Luftwaffe had again increased its fighter defenses in western Europe. Allied losses went up. In eight days the R.A.F. and the U.S. Air Forces lost 185 heavy bombers. Down with them went hundreds of highly trained pilots and crewmen. Back with the surviving formations went many a damaged bomber, many a wounded airman, many a tough task for the commanders and ground crews who had to bring the battered squadrons back up to strength.

These were heavy losses, but not too heavy. The fact is that the Allies can afford their losses, the Luftwaffe cannot.

The 1,000 German fighters now diverted to the western air front are just so many planes lost to the Axis forces in Russia and in southern Europe--whether the fighters come from Luftwaffe reserves or from other fronts. Also lost are bombers which will never be built because the Germans have shifted their main effort to producing defensive fighters.

German fighter pilots can, and have, put up a fierce and brilliant defense. But the Luftwaffe has not been able to make the Allied offensive so costly that it must be abandoned. Failing this, the defense is bound to be futile: no defense, ground or air, can consistently keep a strong and determined bombing force from reaching its targets.

British night bombers generally take their losses, inflict relatively few in return. With the more heavily armed American day bombers, the story is different. Said a U.S. communique last week, reporting a score of 37 bombers to "nearly 100" German fighters in two raids: "The primary task of heavy bombers operating in daylight against war industry is to slow enemy armament production, but attrition against enemy fighter defenses, an important secondary consideration, is mounting steadily."

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