New Chief in the Air

Unlike changes in government personnel, which almost always come for reasons which are obvious to everyone, changes in military command are not always so clear. For every new general is always officially an erudite bear cat until he is succeeded. Then he becomes an ignoramus and a scared cat.

Last week Britain's R. A. F. announced an important change. Sir Cyril Louis Norton Newall was replaced as Chief of Air Staff by Sir Charles Frederick Algernon Portal, formerly head of the bomber command. Sir Cyril was immediately branded by unofficial gossip as a defeatist, a Chamberlain appointee whom soft-hearted colleagues did not wish to bounce until Chamberlain was bounced, a hard worker but a man in whom the offensive spirit burned somewhat low. It was said that because he is a social butterfly and his wife an American climber, he should be a great success in his new job, Governor General of New Zealand. This was not the story the press heard when Sir Cyril was Chief of Air Staff.

His successor, on the other hand, was hailed as "one of the youngest, ablest and most vigorous men in the three services," an inspiration to his subordinates, a keen pilot. Wonderful tales were told of his prowess as a cricketer at his old school, Winchester; as a marksman and fisherman. He was described as an authority on nature's counterpart of the R. A. F.--falconry. Britons were reminded that in World War I he nicked the plane of the great German Ace Immelmann with a rifle; that in 1917 he went out five times a night to bomb and once engaged no less than five enemy planes at a time. He was, in short, a very dragon-killer of a man.

Sir Cyril's removal, now that "Tiny" Ironside and "Tiger" Gort were in limbo, cleaned out the three leaders who were roundly acclaimed three months ago for the victorious retreat from Flanders. Only unbeaten generals are bear cats.

Nevertheless, the appointment of Sir Charles Portal was important and interesting. The two most likely candidates to succeed Sir Cyril were Air Marshal Sir Charles Portal and Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh ("Stuffy") Dowding, head of the fighter command, man most responsible for the R. A. F.'s brilliant defenses against the Luftwaffe. That the R. A. F. chose the expert in offense rather than defense indicated that Britain's self-esteem had taken a great rise.

Louder and Sunnier. With weather and the U. S. lending more & more aid, British confidence grew loud. Last week Nazi night raids on London eased up in the face of bad weather, and early this week, with a sou'wester howling on the Channel, Londoners experienced their first all-clear night in 30.

The R. A. F. claimed this week that bombings of enemy territory, which continued at a crescendo, were according to a "master plan" drawn up by Air Chief Sir Charles Portal when he was with the bomber command. This program sent bombers out systematically after oil plants, armament factories, airports, docks, naval bases, railroad lines, freight yards, barge concentrations, shipping. It concentrated on bottlenecks. Though Germany is comparatively well supplied with aluminum, the R. A. F. went all-out for aluminum factories, to keep the Germans from using the metal as a substitute for copper, of which Germany has very little.

This week Under Secretary for War Brigadier General Sir Henry Page Croft predicted that after the R. A. F. had destroyed the Luftwaffe and leveled German industry, British forces would "drive the Nazis back into Germany." R. A. F. officers began to talk confidentially and confidently of "springtime knockout blows." The Germans themselves were pretty cocky. They made the hyperbolic claim that since the start of the war no less than 7,000,000 tons of British shipping had been sunk--about half Britain's merchant fleet. That was fantastic, but the British did have to admit that in seven days the enemy had sunk 159,288 tons of British, neutral and Allied shipping--the worst week of the war, indeed a worse rate for British shipping than in April 1917, when unrestricted sinkings were taking their heaviest toll. The Nazis thought a knockout was coming this winter--of Britain.

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