Russia's Air Force
By Wing-Commander P. B. LUCAS, D.S.O., M.P.
0 NE crisp and sunny morning in the early spring of 1942 a German fighter-pilot baled out over Malta. His name was Kurt Lauinger. His Messerschmitt had bee. n shot down by one of the flight-commanders in my squadron. Lauinger's home was in Southern, Germany. He was a good- looking man of magnificent physique, and behind an engaging humour lay a keen intellect. When lie was picked up his right leg was found to be fractured in two places. He was taken to the military hospital at Imtarfa—a couple of miles from our mess—where he passed the next two noisy months.
I got to know Lauinger well, and spent many off-duty hours talking to him in the ward of the hospital. Pilots, like wild- fowlers and fishermen, have much in common ; they are fond of exchanging lies. Although we would talk for hours, Lauinger never once gave away information about his own air force. But as spring turned into summer, and the great battle for the island reached its climax, his spirits rose. One day, in the middle of a particularly vicious dive-bombing attack upon the neighbouring airfield of Takali, he exclaimed: " Alia, soon the Fuehrer will invade, and I shall be free to go back to Germany and fly. Perhaps I shall be sent again to the Russian front."
This was the first indication he had given that he had pre- viously been engaged in the East. Subsequently he expressed many opinions upon the Soviet Air Force, over which he had scored several. personal victories. If he despised Mussolini's pilots with whom he had been associated in Sicily, his contempt for Russia's aircraft and airmen was equally great. " Their pilots, they are stupid," he would say, "and their aircraft, they are made of wood. They burn beautifully." Since the days when Kurt Lauinger was flying against Russia the Soviet Air Force his undergone a revolutionary change. I now hold the view that the development of Communist air-power from 1946 to 1951 is comparable only with the expansion of the German Air Force between 1935 and 1939. Ironically, this has been made possible by Stalin's inheritance from Hitler. Although the Allies maintained general air superiority from 1942 until the end of the fighting in Europe, the Germans finished the war ahead of Britain and America in the operational development of jet- and rocket-propelled aircraft. While the Royal Air Force had only a squadron of jet-propelled Meteors in operation late in 1944. Goering had at the same time 300 or so Messerschmitt 262s and 163s available for combat on the Western Front— enough for eight or ten squadrons. In their desperation to stem the flooding tide of Allied bomb- ing. the Germans were pressing forward vigorously with the Production of their latest propeller-less machines. In this dramatic last-minute bid to wrest air superiority from the British and the Americans, they had reached an output of 200 jet- and rocket-propelled aircraft a month. But it was too late. When surrender came the Germans appeared, for all the world, a whipped nation, whose once noble squadrons had been beaten to pulp by a stronger, better designed, more efficient air force. " Air power," said Field-Marshal von Rundstedt, " was the Om decisive factor in Germany's defeat."
What few people then knew, and fewer still now realise, was that the Germans, in their final and desperate attempt to match the Allies in the air, had reached this remarkably advanced state in aircraft development. I remember one night in the last weeks of the war flying an intruder patrol in a Mosquito along the road between Berlin and Lilbeck in the light of a full moon. Suddenly my navigator bellowed : " Look out, sir. There's something behind." Investigation indicated that this was almost certainly a jet-propelled Messerschmitt 262 being used for night inter- ception. On return to base I reported this to Intelligence. " Couldn't have been a 262," said the officer. " There are only a few about by day, let alone by night." Such was a common view ruling at the time.
After 1945 this German advance in research and operational development became available to the Russians. The great Teutonic aircraft factories, the wind tunnels for experiments in supersonic flight, the technicians, the designers, the blue prints— all these fell into the Soviet's outstretched hands. The extent to which these acquisitions have since been used by the Russians is now apparent froin their astonishing progress in aerodynamic design. What are the facts?
We know that if the Russians were to attack in Western Europe this summer, at least one of their swept-wing jet fighters, the MIG-15, would be superior in performance to any British counterpart in Royal Air Force squadrons. At the moment only the North American F.86 has the measure of it, for there is no British swept-wing fighter in operational service. We believe, according to American reports, that the Russians have two even later fighters in service, the YAK 25 and the Lavochkin 17, and that the YAK 25 may well have a performance far in advance of the MIG-15. We know that the Russians have had a four- engined jet bomber flying since 1947, and no one has yet con- vinced me that this aircraft may not soon be seen in Soviet squadrons. Certainly we are aware that our own four-engined jet bomber, which has only recently been ordered by the Govern- ment, has not yet flown, and that it must be at least three or four years before it is ready for the squadrons of Bomber Com- mand. We believe that production of front-line Russian military types may now be reaching 1,500-1,700 a month—double the German figure at the outbreak of the late war—and that 600 to 800 of these are single, twin or multi-jet aircraft.
For myself, I am not so worried by the remarkable expansion of Stalin's air strength as I am concerned lest its meaning may not be fully apparent to the British Government. Undoubtedly we have certain advantages which weigh heavily in our favour. First, we have the most efficient and best-trained air-crews in the world and an air staff of unparalleled experience. Second, we have an aircraft industry which, given the chance, is capable of producing military aircraft second to none. In the field of fighter aircraft the development of the Hawker 1081 and the Supermarine 535 is quite unequalled. Third, we have, in our knowledge and development of radar in all its modern forms— ground to air, air to ground and air to air—an advantage over Russia which not even German scientific ability under Soviet yoke is likely to match.
What, then, in the light of these considerations, is the duty of the Government? First, and above all else, it is to establish within the shortest possible time a strategic striking force of long- range machines. I am thinking now in terms of aircraft with a combat radius of 5,000 miles, a bomb-load of 10,000 lbs., a rated altitude of 45,000 feet and a speed at that height of 500 miles per hour. My mind is not dwelling upon the Canberra or, for that matter, upon a military version of the Comet, although I recognise and applaud the genius which has conceived and manufactured these wonderful aircraft.
Second, to arrive at once (if this has not already been done) at a general strategic concept with the Americans and our Dominions regarding the plans and responsibility for long-range attack. This can no longer be planned on a Continental but only on a global basis. Third, to press forward, with maximum vigour. the research and development in guided missiles in all their many forms, particularly in air-to-air armament. Fourth, to stop arguing a case for our present obsolete tighter aircraft against their up-to-date Russian counterparts, and recognise once and for all the speed now needed to get British swept-wing fighters into squadron service. To do these things would be to establish one of the foundations we shall require if we are to negotiate from strength a lasting settlement with Russia.
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