Victory is in the Air

(See Cover)

In the air over Europe a great battle is nearing its climax. The combined forces of the R.A.F. and the U.S. Eighth Air Force are in head-on collision with the bulk of Germany's fighter-plane strength. The issue may be decided in the next month. On it may depend: 1) success or failure of an Allied invasion; 2) the answer to the question: Can Germany be bombed out of the war?

On the western air front the Germans have concentrated 50 to 60% of their total strength in fighter planes. They have stripped the Russian front to a thin cover of fighters, almost denuded the Mediterranean front. All their new fighter production is being sent to the west, and with it their best pilots. They are using every known tactic of air warfare and many new ones to break up the formations of big Allied bombers raiding Germany by day and by night. They have bombed them from the air, have devised planes to carry rocket guns. They are ' massing their fighters in formation to obtain a concentration of fire and lately have even used captured U.S. Flying Fortresses with American markings to sneak into the U.S. formations and spy out their missions.

The Allies, in their campaign, are using the greatest air force the world has known: a combination of the daylight precision bombing planes of the U.S. Eighth Air Force and the heavy nighttime saturation raiders of the R.A.F. This combined force is fighting a new kind of aerial war. with strategy and tactics made possible by the unique combination of day & night bombers, and by the quantity of subsidiary aircraft for diversionary attacks which the U.S. and Britain could supply. The effects of their joint offensive have already been felt on every battlefield in Europe. If they can overcome the German defenses, their campaign may decide the war before an Allied soldier has set foot on western European soil.

The Combined Force. This new air war is what airmen have envisaged since the first plane dropped the first bomb in the earth-crawling battles of World War I. It is land warfare carried to the air in battles as intricately planned, as painstakingly put into operation as the movement of great armies on the ground. It is a war in which each airplane flies in strict coordination with hundreds of others, in which every bomb dropped contributes its share to a carefully planned pattern of destruction. This pattern, by its cumulative effect, is designed to bring Germany to her knees.

To the world at large this air war is still a jumble of seemingly unconnected attacks on a steadily increasing number of German targets. To the heads of the combined U.S.-British air forces in Britain, and to the German High Command, it is a vast chess game whose players move freely in three dimensions. To win this game, or at least to stalemate it, the Germans are putting virtually all of their air effort into defense.

The Combination of Forces. In this new kind of air war, U.S. Fortresses fly--as they did last week--500 miles into Germany to hit Nazi factories at Schweinfurt -(producer of more than half the Reich's supply of roller bearings). At the same time, other Fortress forces--as they did last week--fight their way 600 miles into Germany to hit Regensburg on the Danube (Messerschmitt-101 fighters), turning south later to cross the Alps and the Mediterranean and land at North African bases. At the same time, U.S. medium bombers and fighters stage widespread diversionary raids on Nazi air bases on the flank of the main Fortress movement, drawing off as many German fighters as possible to clear the road for the heavy bombers.

All of these raids are linked in a pattern planned to anticipate countermoves of the Germans. The Fortresses can--and have--fought their way through any kind of opposition to their targets; German defenses have never yet turned them back. But the less opposition they encounter, the more effective is their bombing. The Allied offensive is planned to assure the minimum of resistance.

In this air war the R.A.F. deals the smashing blows to the body, the U.S. Eighth Air Force the precision blow to the heart. The Stirlings, Halifaxes and Lancasters that carry bombs in British night raids saturate an entire target area, hitting at German production and German morale indiscriminately. In a wide swath of smoking destruction the R.A.F may leave untouched factories on the outskirts of a city, or plants whose isolated location makes them difficult to hit. The precision bombers of the U.S. are sent over to get such factories by daylight. By this combination of forces not only the periphery of German production--the cities, the workers' houses, their will and ability to produce--is hit, but the heart of production itself, the factories turning out the materials of war.

The Eighth. This campaign of combined operations--night & day bombing, saturation and precision raids--became possible with the organization in Britain of the U.S. Eighth Air Force. The Eighth's Bomber Command, its backbone and most potent unit, was born on a grey day in February 1942 when Brigadier General Ira Clarence Eaker stepped from a transatlantic Clipper onto British soil. Eaker had with him a handful of aides, a paper commission and a plan. The plan foresaw the day when the Eighth, with Britain's R.A.F., would be able to overwhelm Ger man defenses and hollow out the German war effort from within.

But 18 months ago the Eighth had no planets, no airfields, no crews. It was five months before U.S. flyers could take part in a British-staged raid on Nazi airfields in The Netherlands. It was six months before the first All-American Flying Fortress raid, led by General Eaker himself, could take off to drop 18 1/2 tons of bombs on railroad yards at Rouen in France. It was nearly a year before Eaker could stage the Eighth's first raid against targets in Germany.

The Eighth's first stage was purely experimental, to test the U.S. theory that daylight raids, despite British and German experiences to the contrary, could be made with profit. The pinpoint precision of Eighth Air Force raids on U-boat bases and factories in the occupied countries proved the theory. But before it could be fully developed, 90% of the Eighth's strength was sent to the North African theater, and Eaker was again virtually without planes.

At the Casablanca conference last January the fate of daylight precision bombing hung in the balance. But when the Eighth's record was presented, the Allied Combined Chiefs of Staff were convinced of its effectiveness. By April the R.A.F. and the Eighth had worked out plans for their new joint operation. By May the second stage could begin.

New planes were pouring in to the Eighth. In the next months its strength doubled, then tripled. As it grew, its pro gram meshed still more closely with that of the R.A.F. Operations of the two forces were completely coordinated. The Eighth celebrated the end of its first year of operations. Its heavy bombers had flown 82 missions, dropped 15,722 tons of bombs, destroyed 1,782 enemy aircraft, lost 419 themselves. They had contributed materially to the crippling of the German U-boat weapon. They had knocked out 20% of Germany's synthetic rubber production at Huels. They had hit destructively the sources of most of her airplane-tire and roller-bearing production, more than half of her fighter-aircraft production. And they had still to reach their full strength.

The Eighth's Leader. Major General Eaker, commander of the Eighth Air Force since the transfer of Lieut. Gen eral Carl ("Tooey") Spaatz to North Africa last December, had 25 years of Army flying to prepare him for his part in the combined air offensive. Through these years he was a fighter-plane man. He mentioned this to his chief, General H. H. ("Hap") Arnold when he was sent to England to head the Eighth's Bomber Command. "That's right, Ira," said Arnold. "What we want is more of the fighter spirit in the Bomber Command."

At 47, brown-eyed, balding, leather-faced General Eaker has plenty of that fighter spirit to spare. Outwardly a serene and soft-spoken man, he has a core of hardness and tenacity which stood him in good stead in the difficult months of the Eighth's slow development. All his life he has had to adjust himself to circumstances. He studied law at Manila while stationed in the Philippines; he attended the Columbia University School of Business when duty took him to New York's Mitchel Field. At the School of Journalism of the University of Southern California he won an award for the best story of the year, and he utilized this training to bring the case for air power before the public in books, newspaper and magazine articles --some written in collaboration with Gen eral Arnold.

Eaker's tact, his soft Texas accent and his open-mindedness paid dividends in the first months of his command in England. His first speech was characteristic. "We won't do much talking," he said simply, "until we've done more fighting. We hope that when we leave you'll be glad we came."

With this, his own brand of diplomacy, Eaker broke down British reserve, made of his R.A.F. colleagues not only willing allies but firm friends. British skepticism of U.S. daylight-bombing theories was overcome. Day or night bombing long ago ceased to be an issue between the U.S. and British air leaders--in Eaker's own words: "There is no conflict between day bombing and night bombing, each being part of a completed pattern and supplementing the whole."

In his headquarters, a sprawling, ugly brick building on the outskirts of London, Eaker works with relentless energy from 8 o'clock each morning until late at night. At his residence, a modern house in suburban surroundings with tennis court and a golf course near by, he entertains all kinds of people at large and frequent parties. Eaker is a thoughtful host who not infrequently will pay more attention to a. U.S. lieutenant awed by the gold braid of air marshals than to the air marshals themselves.

Here, too, he sits up at long sessions of poker. His favorite remark, when newcomers from the U.S. come to his house for dinner: "Well, boys, here's a couple of new suckers. Let's take their money away from them." In the session that follows, he usually does.

One of Eaker's closest friends in England is Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur T. Harris, of the R.A.F. Bomber Command. Eaker's arrival in England coincided with Harris' appointment as chief of the big British bombers. Eaker is a frequent guest at the Harris home, is a favorite of Harris' small daughter Jackie. He gives her chocolate from his Post Exchange ration. She gives him pert talk, hints delicately that he is getting bald.

Eaker and Harris like to talk over what they want to do after the war. Eaker sticks to his dream of running a country newspaper. Harris wants to go fishing. They have decided that Oregon is the best spot for both of them--good spot for a small paper, wonderful fishing.

The Eighth's Mission. But before Eaker can have his newspaper and Harris his fishing, they both want to win World War II by air power. They know now that the show is on, and that this is the showdown. They know that the Germans are straining to stiffen their air defenses--they have felt it in the losses of their planes. If they are stiffened indefinitely it can eventually make the air war in the west very expensive for the Allies--perhaps too expensive to continue.

In the war in the air the U.S. planes are whittling at German fighter strength, shooting down more than four planes for every bomber they lose. They are also gnawing at the industrial machine that builds German planes. But so far German fighter production has been rising.

Possibly this month will see a decrease. If it does the R.A.F. and the Eighth will be over the hump.

If German fighter production falls, the process will snowball. What the R.A.F. and the Eighth need now are planes & more planes to overwhelm the German defenses. They have a schedule of what they want to do and what they need, and they are not far behind it. When their full strength is reached, they believe they can crush Germany. For Eaker of the Eighth and his R.A.F. colleagues, victory is in the air.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.