‘Darn sight longer’ war predicted by air official
Stimson’s assistant says fighting in Europe is ‘awfully tough for Allies
Washington (UP) –
An “awfully tough” war in Europe that will last “a darn sight longer than anyone back home thinks except the military” is predicted by Robert A. Lovett, Assistant Secretary of War for Air.
Mr. Lovett, just back from a three-week visit to Britain and a tour of the Normandy beachhead, hit sharply at what he called “the unreasoning optimism that is prevailing back here.”
Although the German Air Force had been temporarily knocked out as a serious threat to Allied air supremacy, he said, a comeback “may eventually be expected.” And, he added:
I see the German Air Force revamping itself to play a new role, with such things as pilotless aircraft.
Mr. Lovett said difficult weather over France was hampering Allied aerial activities almost constantly, while the terrain on Normandy, cut up by hedges and walls into innumerable small fields about the size of six tennis courts each, was difficult for the ground forces.
He told how a six-day period of good weather last February, unprecedented for 30 years, had given the Allied Air Force an opportunity to smash German plane production in preparations for the June 6 invasion.
“That was the end of the Luftwaffe as a first-class striking force,” he said.
Warning of the danger of a comeback, however, he said the Germans could replace major factories in five or six months. He said since D-Day, German aircraft production had enjoyed a comparative respite from attack and it would be necessary to return and destroy the rebuilt plants again in the next four months.