The success of the R.A.F. in destroying a vital bridge
in Albania only serves to emphasise the rarity of such achieve- ments and the singular difficulty of hitting bridges from the air. So far as I can remember not half a dozen successes in this field during the whole war have been recorded, though there was, of course, the outstanding exploit of the British airman who succeeded, at the cost of his life, in blowing up a vital Meuse bridge where four other pilots had failed before him. London has been suffering a Blitzkrieg for just on three months, yet every bridge over the Thames is left unscathed. The Forth Bridge was repeatedly attacked in the early days of the war, and remained undamaged. We have not claimed to have destroyed any of the Rhine bridges. Even the Hohenzollern, attacked last week, was apparently not hit, though the approaches to it were bombed badly enough to throw traffic into confusion. It would be easy, but impolitic to mention many British road and rail bridges which the enemy would give a great deal to destroy if he could. Fortunately the destruction of bridges from the air is evidently a difficult operation—though it should be no more difficult than hitting the Dortmund-Ems Canal.
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