Day by day, the task arms and the price of victory grow greater. The early summer's burst of optimism seems childish now; with German troops in the Caucasus, and the Afrika Korps poised in Egypt, prophecies of victory have a bitter taste. And yet:
The U.S. and Britain possess a weapon that may open the road to victory. The weapon is combined Anglo-American air power.
TIME does not know whether Germany can be defeated from the air. No one knows, because air attack on the scale necessary to prove or disprove the assertion has never been tried. TIME does know, with all the world, that the Allies have no hope and no way of getting at the main German armies, in Russia or else where, with the strength necessary to destroy them this year. Everyone also knows that the cost of destroying German arms by land assault—next year or the next year or the year after that—will be beyond any price that man has yet paid at all his Armageddons.
The question is not whether Germany can be defeated from the air. Air power is no substitute, no panacea for the pangs of war. The question is only whether the U.S. and Britain will elect to concentrate their maximum air strength against Germany this year. Bombing can mutilate Germany's might at home. Bombing, for the present, is the only way to strike the Germans at the sources of their power. Bombing, on a grand scale, is the only way to strike a blow which, if it does not defeat Germany, will at the least leave Germany crippled for the final blow to come.
The question can be decided only by the U.S. and British high commands. But they must decide it now. If they fail to make the right decision—or, worse, if they fail in the power to make decision—they will be held terribly accountable at the bar of history.
Only the high commands can weigh the demands of global war, the total strength in airmen and airplanes available to the U.S. and Britain, against the certainty that now is the best time to hit Germany from the air. The Allies have an opportunity they may never have again. German victory in Russia and in the Middle East may soon release Germany's main air fleets for defense of the homeland, or for assaults on the Allies' priceless air base in Britain.
TIME herewith summarizes, in terms that any one can understand, the elements of an all-out air offensive against Germany. Perhaps a concentration of Anglo-American air power, on the scale assumed in this summary, cannot be achieved this year; some authorities say it can be, others say it cannot. But, if it can be done, then the following pages give a clear statement of why it should be done, and of how it will work. Through no other course can American mass production strike so quickly so hard a blow at the actual heart of the enemy. An authority on today's air power and its use, Francis Vivian Drake, assisted TIME in assembling and checking the calculations which appear below. They are calculations as to what can be done with today's air planes, the types now flying over Germany and Occupied Europe.
OBJECTIVE OF THE ATTACK