Swing (Jan-Dec 1945)

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56 Sb who should know at least some of the answers I was told that it was impossible for the Germans to get through because the AUies held definite air superiority. Now follow me closely, please. The more important the target, the greater the risk the opposition will take, and one hundred per cent losses, that is, air losses, to my knowledge, have not been known in this war by either side. So Germany certainly could have afforded to take great chances to strike at this huge target, and undoubtedly could have delayed the invasion indefinitely, and possibly compelled the Allies to change their schedule considerably. However, this was not done, and the invasion went ahead according to schedule. Again and again I brought up the question, why did Germany not at least try to break up this invasion fleet, and again and again I was told, first, Allied aerial supremacy and, second, Germany lacked the planes or the weapons with which to make the attack. This I doubted and still do. Less than a week after we had landed in France, the Germans began sending over their V-1 rocket bombs, and the damage these new projectiles caused in England, has just recently been revealed. This proves that the Germans did have some means of destruction from the air — something new. When you know the full story of the death and destruction caused by these bombs in England, and realize that all this was accomplished without one single German crossing the English channel then you in^ January, 194 S can well realize that the Germans today are fighting a different kind of war than they were fighting twelve months ago. If they had these robot bombs then, why did they not attack the invasion fleet? It was a huge target. They knew it was there, yet they held their rocket bombs until after the invasion forces had landed. Why? Well, here is my answer, and it may sound ridiculous to some people, and frightful to others. To my way of thinking it is indeed frightful Germany has indeed perfected newweapons — England was the ground for experimentation. To successfully use these newer weapons to their best advantage, the Germans required a massing of allied forces at not too great a distance from thz German homeland. Germany knew and knows today that by using the same tactics that we use, the same kind of weapons, the same kind of planes and guns, that the war would be just about over. So the German mind, which could create and build such things as the cremation ovens at Maidanek in Poland, which could devise trucks for the exclusive purpose of asphixiating civilians, has also produced death dealing automatons — call them V-1, V-2, V-3 or whatever you like — and these are not indeed the ravings of a mad man or the far fetched schemes of a Buck Rogers, but the newer weapons of destruc tion — swift, powerful and death dealing — with which Germany hopes to be able not to win the war but to