Is Tomorrow Hitler's? 200 Questions on the Battle of Mankind

by H. R. Knickerbocker

But he demands to know, how can we defeat Germany if we do go to war? He knows the answer to that better than anyone. We can defeat Germany only by obtaining mastery of the air over Germany, then destroying the German air force; once the Luftwaffe is destroyed, the impact of that blow alone may cause the first crack in the military and civilian morale of Germany and lift the morale of the conquered peoples to aid in expelling their conquerors. Let me reiterate that the conquered peoples will never revolt until they see the possibility of successful revolt and that will come only with the first serious military setback of the Germans.

Would we have to send an expeditionary land army? We probably shall have to send our best units, and do it quickly, to prevent German seizure of the West African ports and islands affording springboards to America. Our troops would be useful now in North Africa and the Near East. Wherever contact with the enemy can be had, we should be represented as strongly as possible. It is also likely that we shall need to send an A.E.F. to the continent, although not necessarily as large as in the last war. If we can get air superiority, it will mean the war is practically won. I should expect Germany then to crack up.

Even if she did not break down at once, the demoralization entailed by loss of control of the air would be so great that landings on the continent should be feasible at almost any place the Allies chose. Lindbergh persistently asks where we could land an expeditionary force. The answer is that if we get there in time we shall have an excellent base of operations across the seas, Great Britain. From there the coast of Nazi Europe presents hundreds of opportunities for invasion, once the Nazi air force is eliminated.

Lindbergh demands to know how long it would take to win if we think, contrary to his judgment, that we can win. I should think it would take a minimum of three years after we enter the war, maybe four, possibly five or six. It can be accomplished only by expanding our present aircraft production program, which has orders now for 80,000 planes, to whatever dimensions prove necessary. This depends on how many planes the Germans are able to produce from their own and conquered factories, including all the facilities of their conquests in the East. We shall certainly have to think in terms of hundreds of thousands of planes. We and the British will have to supply the pilots and crews and ground crews for these planes, and it may be that our Air Corps will number upwards of a million before we are through. We have the men and the machines to do it.

“How much would it cost in American lives?” Lindbergh demands. Who can tell? We know only that until the Germans went into Russia the casualties in this war had been inconsiderable compared with the last war. As long as combat was confined to the air and the sea, the numbers of combatant lives lost were in the thousands compared with the hundreds of thousands of soldier lives lost in comparable periods in the land fighting of the last war. The bombardment of civilians has been ghastly, but the number of lives lost has been on the whole surprisingly small—41,900 persons killed in Britain from January 1940 to June 1941. It has even been asserted that in Britain, despite the hardships, war has so elevated the tone, the spirit of the population, that death by disease has declined until the gain has made up for the loss of life by bombardment. The relatively small number of deaths is explained by Mr. Churchill as the result of air raid precautions. After the bloodiest month of the Battle of Britain, September 1940, Mr. Churchill made a remarkable analysis.

“We are told,” he said, “by the Germans that 251 tons of explosives were thrown upon London in a single night, that is to say, only a few tons less than the total dropped on the whole country throughout the last war. Now we know exactly what our casualties have been. On that particular Thursday night 180 persons were killed in London as a result of 251 tons of bombs. That is to say it took one ton of bombs to kill three-quarters of a person. We know, of course, exactly the ratio of loss in the last war, because all the facts were ascertained after it was over. In that war the small bombs of early patterns which were used killed ten persons for every ton discharged in the built-up areas. That is, the mortality is now less than one-tenth of the mortality attaching to the German bombing attacks in the last war....

“What is the explanation? There can only be one, namely the vastly improved methods of shelter which have been adopted.... Whereas when we entered this war at the call of duty and honor we expected to sustain losses which would amount to 3,000 killed in a single night and 12,000 wounded, night after night, and made hospital arrangements on the basis of a quarter of a million casualties merely as a first provision; whereas that is what we did at the beginning of the war, we have actually had since it began, up to last Saturday, as a result of air bombing, about 8,500 killed and 13,000 wounded.” This was after three months of the Blitz; today with the figure of 41,900 as the total dead, the Prime Minister’s point is all the stronger as he concluded: “This shows that things do not always turn out as badly as one expects.” Mr. Churchill might have been speaking directly to Lindbergh.

Q. But if air bombardment is as ineffective as these figures of Churchill indicate, how do you expect us to be able to beat Germany by winning air superiority and destroying the German air force? Isn’t there a discrepancy in your argument?

A. No, because Britain has come off so lightly precisely because the Germans never have gotten air supremacy over Britain. If they ever did, it would mean they would win the war, just as if we ever get air supremacy over Germany, it will mean that we will win the war. Air supremacy means you can come over in the daytime, and bomb with precision. Antiaircraft guns are unable to prevent bombing. If there are no fighters to beat off the bombers, the bombers can do just about as they like. They can dive-bomb and destroy any objective they choose with about ninety per cent accuracy. If the Luftwaffe is ever destroyed, British and American planes can annihilate the entire German war industry and then what will it avail Hitler to be the conqueror of all Europe, or of Asia, too?

The R.A.F. has never been out to bomb civilians. The Germans have proved how useless civilian bombing is against a brave people. The R.A.F. has preferred the more difficult job of bombing military objectives and already it has affected the Reich’s war-making capacity. British bombs on the invasion ports had much to do with Hitler’s postponement of his trip to England. With the addition to the R.A.F. of hundreds of thousands of American machines, and with our own hundreds of thousands in the American Air Force, there is no reason to doubt that eventually the German military apparatus can be smashed.