Post-blogging 1940-2

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Today's New Statesman and Nation has little to say about a German invasion or aerial strategy, unlike the Spectator yesterday, aside from a brief paragraph in the editorial comments (221) noting that German bombers now have an equal number of fighters as escorts:

The primary object of these attacks has been to engage and destroy as many British fighters as possible. An invasion is only possible if our defence fighters can be seriously weakened.

It does however have quite a bit to say about air-raid precautions, reflecting its left-wing stance. The near-constant raid warnings are interrupting war work (222). Should factories be permitted to keep working through daytime alerts? Do workers need more comfortable shelters in which to sleep through nighttime alerts?

Are the present areas over which the warning is given too large? Is it possible to arrange for a system of subsidiary warnings which will send people to shelters when enemy planes are approaching their own districts? Can the problem in factories be solved by the system of watchers which is now in many factories developing by agreement between men and employers?

Most importantly, 'we' -- meaning 'the whole public' -- must learn to 'discipline ourselves to carry on with necessary work as soldiers, sailors and airmen do during raids'. This is the true meaning of the slogan 'we are "all now in the front line"'.
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This week's issue of the Spectator, an influential commentary from the right, has a number of editorial comments and columns about the course of the war. The leading paragraph, on page 234, discusses Hitler's recent speech ('bombast [...] lies [...] threats'), focusing on one of his statements which suggests that 'the German Air Force is at present is exerting all its efforts in reply to the R.A.F.'s attacks on Germany.

There is no obvious reason why the Luftwaffe should be refraining from doing its utmost at this moment, but if what we are experiencing is, in fact, its utmost we can afford to be very well content.

It also notes that it was the 'official German news agency' which called the speech 'powerful and moving', not the Reuter news agency as The Times reported yesterday. Sorry, Reuters!
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The Times, 5 September 1940, 4

Bomber Command has been busy bombing German forests, among other targets: the Black Forest on Monday night, the Hartz [sic] in north-west Germany and the Grunewald north of Berlin on Tuesday night. According to the Air Ministry communique, issued last night and reported here in The Times (4), 'military targets [were] concealed' in these forests; 'Many fires were started which later caused explosions'. It's interesting to contrast these British attacks with a 'most determined' German one on presumably similar terrain, a big Scout camping ground, as reported on page 9, described in the headline as 'Destruction typical of the Nazi mind': 'Scout property is evidently classed as a military objective in the Nazi mind'. In each case it is assumed that bomber forces have perfect aim and perfect knowledge: each bombfall is further proof of each side's essential nature, be that good or evil.
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Manchester Guardian, 4 September 1940, 5

The big news in the Manchester Guardian today (5) has nothing to do with the air war but a deal with the United States, which will transfer fifty elderly destroyers to Britain in exchange for 99-year leases on bases in the Western Hemisphere. (It seems that Roosevelt meant what he said at Newfound Gap.) The destroyers 'will be used for convoy, anti-submarine work, and policing the ocean lines of communication so vital to maintaining British exports and imports'. The agreement should be regarded as 'a proof of a solidarity which will remain unaffected by the attacks of isolationists or the slow poison of Nazi propagandists'.
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Times, 3 September 1940, 4

Yesterday was another big day for aerial warfare (these headlines are from The Times, 4). Six hundred and fifty German aircraft attacked RAF aerodromes in south-east England; forty-six were shot down and the raids repulsed. Only thirteen British aircraft were lost. London had more air-raid warnings during the day but suffered nothing worse than that.
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Manchester Guardian, 2 September 1940, 8

The Manchester Guardian sums up the weekend's raids above (5). Eighty-five enemy aircraft were shot down on Saturday, and another twenty-five yesterday. British losses on those days were thirty-seven and fifteen, respectively. The headlines make for reassuring reading: 'Raiders baffled in attacks on aerodromes', 'Raiders scattered on way to London', 'Nazis lose 700 airmen in a week'. And 'More bombs on Berlin'. On behalf of the War Cabinet, Churchill has written a letter to the Commander-in-Chief of Bomber Command to congratulate his force on its work in bombing Germany and Italy. He made special mention of the fact that on the first raids on Berlin, 'the great majority of pilots brought their bombs home, rather than loose them under weather conditions which made it difficult to hit the precise military objectives in their orders'.

This is in marked contrast with the wanton cruelty exhibited by the German flyers who, for example, have vented their spite upon the defenceless watering place and town of Ramsgate in which nearly a thousand dwellings and shops, mostly of a modest character, have been wrecked.

Churchill thinks the accurate marksmanship of Bomber Command is a sign that the 'command of the air' is slowly being 'wrested from the Nazi criminals who hoped by this means to terrorise and dominate European civilisation'.
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Observer, 1 September 1940, 7

The New Statesman was a little off in its belief that the Germans have given up 'blitzkrieg' tactics, as yesterday they renewed their heavy daylight assaults against RAF aerodromes. According to the Observer (above, 7) they also targeted 'women shoppers' in two places near or in London.

On page 8, there's a handy map to help readers keep track of the strategy of the 'Battle of Britain' -- the hatched areas are the 'principal industrial areas' in each country.
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Saturday is the day that the new New Statesman and Nation comes out. (The Spectator comes out on Friday, but I missed that yesterday. Not to worry; there's always next week.) It's a 'week-end review', not a newspaper, but inevitably has much commentary on the war, generally from a left-wing perspective. Indeed, this week it opens (197) with an editorial comment (probably by Kingsley Martin) entitled 'The war in the air'. This war is evolving, from mass daylight raids to small night raids:

GERMAN tactics have changed once more. Blitzkrieg methods were no proving too costly in relation to the results achieved, and the Nazi High Command has decided to follow the example of our own raids on Germany, operating chiefly at night and using only small formations.

Martin admits that this change has been effective, mainly due to the 'wearisome length of the air-raid warnings'.

By our own experience we are beginning to have some experience of what the people of Germany have been enduring for many weeks. Even if we discount official optimism, there is no doubt the damage done by the Germans is small in comparison with that caused by our own airmen, with their far greater experience of night-flying. In this type of warfare it is we who took the initiative, and the Nazis are as yet but clumsy imitators.

(No comment.) He goes on to suggest that the present German tactics are more suited to 'a long war of attrition than to a campaign designed to finish off the enemy by a single decisive blow', though the danger of invasion won't pass until 'the equinoctial tides in the middle of September are over'.
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Times, 30 August 1940, 4

Interestingly, after yesterday's coordinated pro-bombing campaign, today's headlines in The Times (4) emphasise the efforts of Bomber Command over those of Fighter Command. In particular, a raid on Berlin on Wednesday night (or Thursday morning) is described in some detail. A 'large number of bombs, high explosive and incendiary' were dropped 'on a series of carefully selected military objectives and on works vital to war production', including a power station and railway yards. A pair of squadrons made a 'special attack' on an (unspecified) objective just four miles from Berlin's centre. A number of the aircrew (all of whom returned safely) gave accounts of the mission, including this 'young pilot officer':

We bombed at 24.00 hours -- dead on midnight (he said). Somebody had been there before us. When we arrived we found the target well on fire. We could see it when we were 25 minutes' flying time away from the target. We came in more or less North to South and put our stick of bombs down just to the left of this big fire. Then four more fires started. They were burning with very bright white lights. Altogether we were cruising round over Berlin for about half an hour.

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Manchester Guardian, 29 August 1940, 5

The daylight air battles over the south of England intensified yesterday, as these headlines from the Manchester Guardian (5) show. The RAF shot down 24 enemy aircraft while losing 12 of its own (4 of the pilots are safe). Churchill visited the south-east coast and saw some of the action. He was driven out from Dover to inspect the site of one crashed fighter:

An officer saluted as the Premier drove up. "Is it one of theirs or one of ours?" asked Mr Churchill, indicating the still-burning wreckage. "One of theirs, sir," replied the officer. "Good," exclaimed Mr. Churchill. "That's another one off the list."

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