No. 2 Nazi (See Cover)
Among other things that went whistling down on the German seaplane bases at Sylt one night last week (see p. 30) was a pair of shoes, dropped by a young British gunner with a note to explain: For Adolf, your Führer. . . . He will wear them out getting away from us.
This burst of broad British humor contained a strong tincture of bravado. For though some day he may need shoes to make tracks, Herr Hitler now has wings to make trouble. The German Air Force has driven home this point by taking the lead in speeding up the tempo of war-in-the-air, and at least one Briton spoke plain truth about the opposing air forces last week. Air Marshal Ernest Leslie Gossage observed that British and Germans were "only sparring, with each side sizing up the other." One of these days, said he, "cities and industrial centres may come in for it too. We ourselves would naturally take offensive action in return." Obvious was Air Marshal Gossage's implication that Britain was content to stay on the receiving end of the air war, ready to return a blow for any really heavy blow struck by Germany, but not anxious to lead with left, right or chin. Obvious, too, was the reason: the Air Force conceived, organized and commanded by burly Field Marshal General Hermann Wilhelm Göring is still far stronger than the Royal Air Force, has an edge over R. A. F. and French Air Force combined.
This edge is likely to increase until far into 1941, which is why the return of good flying weather and the swelling of the March moon to full last week left Europe anxious about the plans of Her mann Göring.
The kind of aerial warfare Air Marshal Gossage had in mind is one with which Europe became familiar in Spain, in Poland, in Finland. It is war waged beyond the lines, against industry and transport, and its victims are civilians huddled in city cellars, women and children hiding in woods, travelers sprawled in ditches along roads and railway tracks. The one man in Europe who knows best how to wage such a war is Göring, for it was he who first created, with incredible speed and efficiency, a machine with which to fight it.
"Brutal Buccaneer." That this war will be ruthless is to be expected of the man who organized the Nazi Secret Police and system of concentration camps, who coolly announced the shooting of Frau von Schleicher for resisting her ex-Chancellor husband's arrest, who, most people believe, plotted the firing of the Reichstag in 1933 and the subsequent purge of Communists. Göring himself has boasted of the sort of war it will be. Long before World War II began he said: "At one order, Hell would be turned loose on the enemy! With one quick blow destruction of the enemy would be complete!"
Last August 31, a few hours before his airmen set out to make good his boast in Poland, he promised the British Ambassador to Germany, Sir Nevile Henderson, that, if Germany and Great Britain went to war, his Air Force would bomb only military objectives. Wise Sir Nevile reminded him that because of the speed and height of modern aircraft, bombs aimed supposedly at military targets might easily fall in residential London. Sir Nevile added that he would object to being hit on the head by any such present from Hermann Göring.