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THUS far the war has been, in the air, a strange one. It has been strange in several ways. People had expected the Blitzkrieg to break in full fury in the west, but as yet no thunderbolt has fallen there. Poland felt its impact and crumpled under the stroke, though conditions there seemed, prima facie, unfavorable for the successful conduct of a lightning war. The course of the conflict has not, in fact, followed the book. There have been a number of surprises. In the operations at sea, for example, it was confidently expected that aircraft, not the submarine, would be the chief danger to maritime commerce. The airplane, we were told, would harry and dragoon belligerent and neutral shipping in the narrow waters into which the busy lanes of ocean traffic converge. Actually, the air arm has not been particularly effective at sea, though British aircraft have taken a hand with some success in hunting the submarine. That, however, had been foreseen. Certainly the achievements of the German air force in Poland fulfilled the expectations of the most sanguine adherents of the blue sky school. In conjunction with the mechanized ground forces it dominated the situation from the first. The lists were set for a tourney between the old order of warfare and the new. Germany’s strength lay in her possession of the most modern instruments of mechanical destruction. Poland was, in comparison, a nineteenth century Power. Her cavalry was her pride. One could imagine her gallant horsemen galloping with Jeb Stuart or Sheridan in Virginia. Indeed, her great masses of cavalry might have thundered their way to victory in the still more appropriate setting of the mediæval era. As it was, they were a sheer anachronism. Confronted by armored cars and tanks, hammered by high explosive from the air, they were only flesh for the slaughter. The twentieth century won all along the line. The Polish defeat was a tragedy, but an inevitable one. In the east, the war in the air was practically decided on the first day. On the morning of September 1, the German bombers made a vigorous attack on all the air bases in western Poland, as well as on strategic railways and junctions. The Polish aircraft, caught in their hangars, were destroyed or seriously damaged. That first sudden blow, delivered treacherously and without a declaration of war, while the Polish Government thought that negotiations were still possible, crippled the Polish air arm for the rest of the war. A gallant fight was still made by the remnant but the odds against it were too great. In any case the Polish equipment was inferior to the German. Germany had the unquestioned mastery of the air.
At first the methods by which she won it were, apart from the fact that the aggression itself was utterly unjustified, fair enough in themselves. Herr Hitler had announced to the Reichstag on September 1 that he would not war against women and children. He was speaking, it will be noted, less than four weeks before the time when women and children were to be slaughtered and mutilated in Warsaw. “I have ordered my air force,” he said, “to restrict itself to attacks on military objectives.” Replying to President Roosevelt’s appeal that civilian populations be spared the horrors of air bombardment, he defined his attitude to this question in terms which, coming from another, would have presaged the waging of a humane and chivalrous war: ” … that it is a humanitarian principle to refrain from the bombing of non-military objectives under all circumstances in connection with military operations, corresponds completely with my own point of view and has been advocated by me before. I, therefore, unconditionally endorse the proposal that the governments taking part in the hostilities now in progress make public a declaration in this
sense. For my own part, I already gave notice in my Reichstag speech of today that the German air force had received the order to restrict its operations to military objectives.” That the German air force did confine itself more or less to military objectives in the opening phase of the war is supported by a certain amount of independent evidence. Mr. H. C. Greene, the correspondent of the London Daily Telegraph, reported in that journal from Cernaŭti on September 10 that military objectives such as bridges, roads, railways and aërodromes had been aimed at almost exclusively, though terrible losses had fallen on the civil population as a result of the attacks. On September 6, Mr. Butler, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, stated in reply to a question in the House of Commons that the information in the British Government’s possession showed that the German bombing attacks had in general been directed against objectives serving a military purpose and not indiscriminately against the civil population; but he also was careful to add that the latter had at the same time suffered heavy casualties. Soon, however, evidence began to accumulate that other than military objectives were being attacked and that, in fact, methods of terrorization were being adopted by the German Luftwaffe.
It is true that one must always accept with caution reports from belligerent sources concerning excesses or outrages committed by the enemy. There is inevitably an element of propaganda in such reports. Further, newspaper correspondents on the spot are apt to be impressed by what is told them and are not in a position usually to know or state the other side of the case. Some of the Polish announcements were certainly examples of exaggeration, excusable, no doubt, but still unreliable. For instance, a communiqué of September 2 stated that individual farms and farmers had been bombed a somewhat improbable occurrence. On the other hand, it is even more improbable that the reports from many quarters about the ruthlessness of the German air force were entirely devoid of foundation. We have, in fact, unbiased evidence sufficient to convict without any need for dependence on ex parte testimony.
Unquestionably, there were numerous instances of bombing objectives which by no possibility could be termed military. Among them was that of the village of Tomaszow, which was the victim of “a particularly vicious bombing” according to a message to the Times of September 11 from its special correspondent on the Polish frontier. Other instances were attested by Dr. Oskar Zsolnay, a Hungarian official trade delegate who had been in Lwów and who described in a Budapest paper a large number of bombing raids on that city, nearly all of them directed against non-military objectives. Some of the most important evidence was supplied by the American Ambassador to Poland, Mr. Biddle, who on September 8 furnished the State Department with particulars of cases in which non-military targets had been attacked: they included his own villa, more than ten miles outside Warsaw, a sanatorium, a refugee train, a hospital train and a hut for Girl Guides. “It is also evident,” he added, “that the German bombers are releasing the bombs they carry even when they are in doubt as to the identity of their objectives.” Again, on September 13, Mr. Biddle reported that the village to which he had then moved and which was, he said, “a defenseless open village” had been attacked by German bombers. On September 20 the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Information said in the House that reports from the British Ambassador to Poland supported the evidence of Mr. Biddle on the bombing of open towns.
One may perhaps feel some hesitation in accepting without reservation the statement in
the Polish communiqué of September 15 that the bombardment of open towns by German aircraft had “assumed the character of a systematic destruction of all built-up areas or cities without any connection with military operations,” but there can be no reasonable doubt about the fact that a great number of non-military objectives were bombed. Beyond question many villages were deliberately attacked and a number of them destroyed. In Warsaw itself the Belvedere and Lazienki Palaces, the Seym (Parliament) building, the Soviet and Rumanian Embassies, the Latvian Legation, a number of churches and some hospitals had been wholly or partly demolished from the air even before the intensive bombardment from air and ground began on September 25. The final state of the city was still more tragic. The correspondent of a Danish newspaper who visited it after the surrender reported that scarcely a house was undamaged and in several districts, especially the suburb of Praga, not one house was left standing. The devastation was due in part to artillery fire, but the bombs of the aircraft contributed very materially. Inevitably the losses suffered by the civil population were heavy in the extreme. It is perfectly clear that if the Germans did in fact attempt to bomb only military objectives, they failed in that attempt most lamentably. The more likely explanation is that no such attempt was made. The city was bombed indiscriminately, subjected, in fact, to a display of Nazi Schrecklichkeit. The destruction was intended as an object lesson. “I should like the gentlemen of London to see what a city looks like when it has been through what Warsaw suffered,” said the German wireless announcer on October 4. “These gentlemen ought to see what might happen in their own country if they persist in their mad warmongering.” The fiction that only military objectives were bombed was kept up in the German reports. A communiqué issued by the High Command on September 25 stated: “Important military objectives in Warsaw were successfully attacked in power-dives by German aircraft.” It is a sufficient commentary upon this to record that when Warsaw asked for an armistice on September 27, 16,000 soldiers and 20,000 civilians lay wounded in the hospitals. There is little doubt, indeed, that Warsaw was subjected to a bombardment, from ground and air, of which the purpose was psychological, or more bluntly, to terrorize. That particular type of bombardment is nothing new in the practice of German arms. It was tried on many occasions in the Franco-German War of 1870-71. At Strasbourg, for instance, the civilian quarters of the city were shelled by siege batteries in order to “induce the inhabitants to compel the governor to surrender the fortress.” The effect was simply to stiffen the determination of the garrison and the inhabitants to resist.
Exactly the same tactics were employed at Warsaw nearly seventy years later, and the same effect was produced; the morale of the city was unbroken, for it was lack of ammunition and supplies, not loss of courage, which finally made surrender inevitable. Methods of frightfulness defeat their aims when used against a determined people. Herr Hitler announced in his speech on September 19 that the British blockade might force him to make use of a “weapon by which we [Germany] cannot be attacked.” The fresh resort to Schrecklichkeit here foreshadowed, whether it referred to the poison gas or to bacteriological warfare or merely to massed attack from the air on cities, will not effect its object. On that point there can be no doubt whatever.
The major rôle which the German air force played in the conquest of Poland is no proof that it will achieve similar successes in the west. Poland was, in comparison with Germany, very weak in the air. That her air force, after the initial losses which it sustained on September 1, was able to resist as well as it did testifies to the gallantry of its
personnel. It is the more regrettable that its achievements were magnified by some absurd propaganda. The statement in a communiqué of September 3 that 64 German machines were brought down on that day for the loss of 11 Polish machines was entirely unbelievable. The announcement a little later that Berlin had been bombed was no less unconvincing. There is no escape from the conclusion, on the known facts, that Poland was wholly outclassed in the air.
The position is and will continue to be a very different one in the west. Here the German air arm is faced with a far harder task. Neither in numbers nor in quality will it be able to claim superiority over the FrancoBritish air strength. Indeed, Air Chief Marshal Sir Cyril Newall stated in an interview in Paris on October 7 that the British and French air forces were already well on the road to establishing their supremacy in the air. Some 2,000 to 3,000 German aircraft are said to have been employed against Poland. The total first line strength at Germany’s disposal in the west may be 4,000 machines or more. The Allies’ effectives are probably as great. In quality of matériel there is probably not much to choose between the opposing combatants, but what little advantage there is should be on the Allies’side. The German Heinkel, Junkers, Dornier and Henschel bombers are undoubtedly formidable aircraft but they are no better than the Wellingtons, Blenheims, Amiots, and Loiré et Oliviers on the other side. No German bomber, so far as is known, carries a bombload so large as that of the latest French heavy bomber, the Farman 223. The French Morane 406 C and Bloch 151, the British Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane are at least a match, in the fighter class, for the Messerschmitt 109 or 110 and the Heinkel 112. Sir Kingsley Wood, Secretary of State for Air, declared in the House of Commons on October 10 that the latest British fighters were “definitely better than their German counterparts.”
The newest French fighters are also fine machines. The French air force is fortunate in that practically all its equipment is of the latest design and production. At the time of the Munich settlement the French equipment was notoriously unsatisfactory; production had fallen to around 50 machines a month and the flying squadrons were equipped with types which were obsolescent if not obsolete. Now, France has a splendid, modern air force. Her factories are pouring out machines in an increasing flow and the supplies received from America help to swell the volume. The American fighter, the Curtiss P. 36, has already acquitted itself well in action. It is already evident from the encounters which have taken place that the fighter is the master both of the bomber and of reconnaissance aircraft. That is no surprise to those who followed the air operations in Spain, where to quote General Duval “the chasse machine considers the bombing machine incapable of defending itself.” [i] “It is now definitely admitted,” says Captain Didier Poulain, referring to the air fighting in Spain, ” that the bomber is practically without defense against the fight er.”[ii] In Spain the bombers could avoid heavy casualties only by protecting themselves with screens of fighters, says F. A. Fischer von Poturzyn.[iii] “Whether in individual combat or in formation,” says M. C. Rou geron, “the bomber in its present form is no match for the fighter.” [iv] The evidence so far obtainable in the present war confirms that afforded by Spain. When a British bombing formation made an attack on enemy warships in the Helgoland Bight on September 29, five out of the six bombers were shot down according to the German official report, which
was not denied on the British side. In the epic encounter of five British bomberreconnaissance aircraft with fifteen Messerschmitts over the western front on September 30, three of the former were shot down and a fourth made a forced landing. The fifth managed to reach its own lines after shooting down two German fighters; it had 80 bullet holes in its structure, its ailerons and rudder were damaged, both its petrol tanks were burst, its retractable undercarriage was jammed. The British fighters have been even more successful in their encounters with the German bombers. They shot down 4 out of the 12 or 14 which raided the Firth of Forth on October 16; and on the next day two bombers which approached the English east coast were both engaged and shot down. Out of 12 German bombers which attacked a convoy in the North Sea on October 21, 4 were shot down by British fighters, and 3 more, it was subsequently ascertained, failed to reach Germany. Two more bombers were brought down on October 22 and 28.
The operations in Poland confirmed another lesson of the Spanish civil war the importance of the air arm as a tactical weapon when used in conjunction with ground forces. In Spain the technique of air support in the assault was successfully developed by the Nationalists. An American officer has described this method from personal observation. Bombing aircraft with small bombs and machine guns would fly in single file - la cadena, it was called over the trenches and rake them while the tanks and infantry deployed into assault formation and moved up to the at tack.[v] According to a British officer, General Beauman, the principal tactical lesson of the Spanish civil war one which will be taken to heart by the great continental armies is that aircraft must be used if an at tack is to make headway against modern defensive weapons.[vi] In Poland the same method was adopted in a bigger theatre of war. First, aircraft bombed and machine-gunned the enemy’s positions, then the armored cars and tanks drove home the initial attack, to be followed in turn by the columns of infantry, whose task was immensely lightened by the preliminary work of the aërial and mechanized spearheads. When the major operations begin on the western front, the use of aircraft to open the way for the ground assault is likely to be a prominent feature of the tactical program.
Another lesson learnt in Spain was the increased effectiveness of the modern anti-aircraft gun as compared with its predecessor of twenty years ago; and here again experience in Poland and on the present western front seems to support the teaching of Spain. The German 88-mm. gun proved itself extraordinarily effective in Spain. Before it arrived, the losses of the Republican bombers from gunfire were almost nil. After its arrival they became severe. “By their anti-aircraft artillery,” writes M. Rougeron, “the Nationalists succeeded in protecting their rear areas,” the Republican aircraft venturing within range of it only at their peril.[vii] The British 3.7inch gun is the counterpart of the German 88-mm. gun and is at least as formidable a weapon; the 4.5-inch gun has a still greater range and muzzle velocity, but is fixed whereas the 3.7-inch gun is mobile. Britain, declared Sir Samuel Hoare, the Home Secretary, at Swansea on January 26, 1939, has the most modern and effective types of anti-aircraft guns in the world. Their effectiveness is due largely to the fact they are used in conjunction with the predictor, an instrument which enables its crew, using a telescopic eyepiece, to set it so that it can calculate with great precision the point at which the shell
and the flying target will collide in space if level flight is maintained by the latter. The information so calculated is transmitted electrically to a dial on the gun, whose crew can then train their weapon at the indicated spot. Another instrument, the height-finder, is used with the predictor. Altogether, anti-aircraft artillery is today something which cannot be mocked by the pilot as was the “Archie” of the last great war. Naval anti-aircraft gunnery has been improved to at least a corresponding degree. When introducing the Navy Estimates in the House of Commons on March 16, 1939, Mr. Shakespeare, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty, told his audience that if he had the choice between being in a battleship which was being bombed and in the aircraft which was bombing it, he would choose the former every time. His words were borne out on September 26 by the result of an attack by about twenty German aircraft on a squadron of British capital ships, with an aircraft carrier and destroyers, in the North Sea. Not a single hit was scored by the aircraft, not a single casualty caused on the warships; the attack was beaten off without difficulty and two of the aircraft were shot down. The Germans claimed that an aircraft carrier subsequently stated to be the Ark Royal was destroyed, that a battleship was badly damaged, and that no loss was sustained by the German aircraft, which returned safely to their base. There was no truth in any of these statements. Again on October 9 German aircraft made both level and dive bombing attacks on British warships in the North Sea, but scored no hits and inflicted no casualties. Two of the bombers, one with a wounded man on board, made forced landings on the same day in Denmark, and a third in Norwegian waters. The presumption is that all three had been damaged by the warships’fire. The effectiveness of the German anti-aircraft guns had already been demonstrated during the raid of September 4 by British bombers against the German fleet at Wilhelmshaven and Brunsbüttel; it was claimed by the German and not denied in the British official report that five of the twelve attacking bombers were brought down by the antiaircraft batteries. On this occasion, however, the raiders had something to show for their losses, for they scored a direct hit with a heavy bomb upon a German battleship.
The greatly increased strength of the active defense, in the air and on the ground, has doubtless been one reason why there has been a certain shyness about beginning the longrange raiding attacks which had been expected. Against well-defended areas such raids must be, by day, very perilous adventures. The raiders are certain to be forced to pay heavily for any successes they may achieve. They have to run the gauntlet of the outer gun zone, the zone of the interceptor aircraft, and then the inner gun zone, before they can reach their objective, and they have to clear the same hurdles on their homeward run. By night the chances of the bombers’coming through are better; but even then they will probably find their task no light one. Blinded by the searchlights, they will be a fairly easy mark for the interceptors, and in clear weather the anti-aircraft guns should be able also to claim some victims. When they do get through they will then have to find their objectives and this will often be difficult. The “blackout” is now so effective that there is little apparent difference, from the air, between the built-up areas and the open countryside. Night-flying raiders groping for a particular factory or military establishment will probably have to plaster the whole area with bombs in which the objective is supposed to be. That is a costly method of trying to hit a target, costly in petrol as well as in high explosive. Most of the bombs would probably fall on empty ground. Even if London as a whole were the objective, the odds are, as Major General Foulkes has pointed out, that
only one bomb in ten, on the average, would hit a building, for 90 percent of the whole area is open space. “In the area within fifteen miles of Charing Cross, containing a population of eight and a half millions, the odds against a bomb falling within fifty feet of any particular spot is two and a half millions to one.”[viii]
The indiscriminate bombing which such a method of trying to hit a given objective would involve is hardly a practice which either side will be eager to initiate. Not only would the effect upon neutral opinion be unfavorable to the belligerent who began it, but the result would inevitably be to stiffen the determination of the nation which figured as the first victim of such an attack. Moreover, the belligerents in the west are too evenly matched in the air to make it safe for the one to expect the other not to make a strong counteroffensive. Even if the initial stroke were confined strictly to military objectives, the reply to it might not be similarly restricted. Perhaps one cannot tell it was for this reason that the French and British air forces refrained from trying to smash up the German troop concentrations and the trains carrying men and matériel from Poland to the west. The very fact that bombing raids into the interior of the enemy country had been begun might be the signal for resort to la guerre totale in the air, with all its horrors. That may come yet, but one harbors a faint hope that behind the reluctance to begin long-distance raiding attacks there may be, as a conscious or subconscious influence, the idea that bombing should be confined to the zones of active operations and their immediate vicinity. Some vague suggestions for an agreement to limit bombing in this way were indeed put forward by Herr Hitler in 1935 and 1936. In any case, it is evident whatever be the reason that neither side has desired to be the first to bomb objectives far behind the other’s lines.
Long-range raids there have been, but their purpose has been primarily reconnaissance and secondarily the distribution of literature, not of high explosive. Some surprise has been expressed that the first task of the British Air Force should have been to disseminate propaganda in this way; but, in fact, it is not in the least a novel task either for the British or other air services. Raids for such a purpose were frequent in the last great war. The Germans, for instance, dropped leaflets among the Indian troops in France in November 1914, urging them to revolt; the flaw in the plan was that the language used was Hindi, whereas the particular troops to whom the appeal was made spoke Urdu. Attempts to seduce the Senegalese troops in Gallipoli were similarly made by the GermanoTurkish air force in October 1915. French airmen, on their side, dropped leaflets on many occasions, notably in May 1915, to inform the German people of Italy’s participation in the war on the Franco-British side. British aircraft dropped an enormous number of notes during 1917 and 1918. America’s entry into the war was made known in this way, as was also President Wilson’s message to Congress early in 1918. So great was the effect of this propaganda that Field Marshal Hindenburg thought it necessary to issue a proclamation in September 1918, urging the people to pay no attention to “leaflets intended to kill the soul.”
The recent flights made into Germany by the Royal Air Force for reconnaissance and the distribution of leaflets (dropped in the form of “bricks” which broke up in the air) were carried out at a great height and encountered very little opposition. That these raids are, from the German point of view, anything but a joke, is evident from the severe penalties threatened against any inhabitants found reading the leaflets. How great will be the effect
of such propaganda it is impossible as yet to say. It may well be that in retrospect it will be seen as no less important than if an equivalent weight of bombs had been dropped. The British flights had another effect, too. They demonstrated beyond possibility of doubt that all northern, western and even central Germany lay within the range of British aircraft. They showed the true value of Field Marshal Göring’s assurance that if an enemy machine crossed the German frontier it would be at once brought down.
The demonstration of Britain’s ability to carry the war into Germany contributed, no doubt, to the latter’s hesitation to launch air attacks upon Britain in the early days of the war. Whatever the cause, the thunderclap for which all ears were straining was not heard. The result was something of an anticlimax. The whole country had braced itself for the worst. Measures of passive defense had been organized on a colossal scale. Millions of children, invalids and expectant mothers had been evacuated from the danger areas on or before the outbreak of war. Hundreds of thousands of hospital beds had been earmarked for air raid casualties. Doctors, nurses, air raid wardens, auxiliary firemen, decontamination squads, dispatch riders were all standing by and waiting for their services to be needed. And then, lo and behold nothing happened. People began to ask: Will nothing happen at all? That question has not been answered yet. But it may be answered at any time. Devastating air attacks may have been launched on London and other cities before these words appear in print. They may be simultaneous with a great thrust on the western front, the object being to pin down in England fighter squadrons which would otherwise be available for reënforcing the units in France. If the Maginot Line is to be smothered by high explosive bombs, preparing the way for an onset by giant tanks, all the fighter aircraft which can possibly be assembled by the Allies will be needed to beat off the German bombers and their escorting fighters. Whether the raiders come to London and Paris or not, whether they cause destruction on a widespread scale or not, they cannot decide the issue of the war. That will be decided by sea power. Admiral Mahan’s doctrine that the belligerent who holds command of the sea can never be beaten in the end will again be proved true. Air power cannot prevail against sea power, regardless of the methods of Schrecklichkeit it uses. And the result must be the same whether it comes soon or late. Germany will be beaten; the only question is how long it will take. The collapse of Germany may come sooner than any man could now surely predict; it may come within the three years for which the British Government is laying its plans; or perhaps we may have to wait until grass has long been growing in the streets of Hamburg.
Notes
[i] “Les Leçons de la Guerre d’Espagne.” Paris: Plon, 1938, p. 154.
[ii] Journal of the Royal United Services Institution, August 1938, p. 582.
[iii] “Luftmacht.” Heidelberg: Vowinckel, 1938, p. 85.
[iv] “L’Aviation de Bombardement,” I. 36.
[v] “The Aëroplane’s Rôle in Battle in Spain,” by Brig. Gen. H. J. Reilly, in The Aëroplane, April 29, 1939.
[vi] Brig. Gen. A. B. Beauman: “A Short Outline of Modern Tactics.” London: Rees, 1939, p. 46.
[vii] “Les Enseignements Aériens de la Guerre d’Espagne,” 1939, p. 105. [viii] “Commonsense and A.R.P.” London: Pearson, 1939, p. 32.
Second Phase
ONE lesson taught by the second phase of the air operations in the present European war [i] is that superior strength on the land and in the air can produce a decision far more quickly than in the days before the air was conquered. This was the lesson taught by the German triumphs in Norway, Holland, Belgium and France. It was taught, too, more clumsily, by the Russians in Finland. Even if a belligerent makes almost every possible tactical error in land operations, predominance in the air will enable him to blind and overwhelm an opponent whose air arm is inadequate and whose army, even though well directed and, indeed, superior in fighting quality, is numerically inferior. Such, at least, was the lesson of the mid-winter campaign in Finland. In the air, as on land, Russia had an immense superiority of strength. Finland had probably less than 100 first-line planes; her total strength in serviceable aircraft can hardly have exceeded 150. What Russia’s firstline strength was is uncertain, but it was undoubtedly immense. The esti mate of “Max Werner,” [ii] 10,000 to 12,000 first-line aircraft, was certainly excessive; that of M. Laurent Eynac,[iii] 3000 aircraft, was probably too low. M. Pierre Cot placed the figure at 4500-5000 machines, and General Sikorski at 5000, with an equal number in reserve.[iv] The figure of 4200 to 4500 was suggested in 1938 in a French publication[v] and was probably not far wrong. In the fighting in the Karelian Isthmus on February 15, 1940, more than 500 machines were reported to have been in the air, and on a later day in February at least 1000 were flying in all the Finnish theatre.
The Russian machines were on the whole of poor quality. The I-16 single-seater fighter had a maximum speed of only 248 miles per hour and a comparatively poor armament. The standard bomber, the S.B., had a top speed of no more than 250 miles per hour and a range of only 620 miles. Another bomber, the Ts.Kb.26, had a range of 1300 miles, with a similar maximum speed. Both would have been shot to pieces by modern fighters. The quality of the Finns’aircraft was not, however, much better. Their machines were a scratch collection. The fighters were largely Bristol Bulldogs, long discarded in Great Britain. Better machines were gradually acquired. Gladiator fighters and Blenheim bombers were obtained from Britain and a number of modern aircraft were also supplied from France and the United States. Altogether, 101 planes were sent from Brit
ain during the war, as well as 15,700 aircraft bombs.[vi] By the end of the war Finland had probably more and certainly better aircraft than she had had at the beginning. She was still, however, woefully inferior to Russia in the air.
How ruthlessly Russia exploited her superior strength is notorious. It is true that the Red Army Command issued at the beginning of March 1940 a categorical denial of the charges that the air arm had bombed non-military objectives and machine-gunned civilians. The evidence in support of the charges is too strong. Photographs of the destruction wrought at Helsinki, Viipuri, Hanko and other places were published in many newspa
pers.[vii] The verdict of Sir Walter Citrine, who, with Mr. Philip Noel Baker and Mr. John Downie, visited Finland in January 1940, on behalf of the National Council of Labor, is quite uncompromising. He and his colleagues most certainly had no bias against Russia and their condemnation of her acts is accordingly the more impressive. Of Turku (Aabo) he wrote that “by far the vaster proportion of the damage was utterly without military importance” and that “it was certain that the bombing was indiscriminate.”[viii] Of the destruction of Hanko he wrote: “It seemed diabolical to me that a country which only a couple of years ago was denouncing to the world the German and Italian bombing in Spain should now be resorting to this means of trying to terrorise the Finnish people.”[ix]
So flagrant were the Soviet attacks on hospitals that the Finnish medical authorities abandoned the use of the Red Cross as a protective emblem. Before they did so it was reported that a couple of Russian prisoners captured in the Isthmus protested against being taken to a Red Cross hospi tal. “That,” they said, “is the kind of house our airmen bomb.” [x] Some terrible photographs of the devastation caused by bombs in the hospital at Rovaniemi, where the operating theatre and a ward were hit, five nurses and many patients being killed, were published in a British news paper.[xi]
The ruthless bombing undoubtedly had its effect. A well-known war correspondent, who followed the operations in Finland, has stated that “Russia’s air supremacy was really the deciding factor.” The advantages which it gave were, he states, that it prevented all counter-bombing by the. Finnish air force; it allowed the Russian aircraft to observe all that occurred on the other side; it stopped the flow of Finnish munitions and food to the front; and, above all, it deprived the exhausted Finnish sol diers of rest.[xii]
It is nevertheless open to question whether the Soviet authority in the air would have sufficed to quell the Finnish resistance except in combination with a vast superiority on the ground. It was the “Russian steamroller” below that made the assault from above so effective. All that one can say as a result of the campaign in Finland is that predominant air power plus predominant land power is decisive today in war, in circumstances in which sea power cannot be brought into play. There is not sufficient evidence that the first without the second would have succeeded in forcing Finland to capitulate. Meanwhile in the western theatre of war the strange lull in the air which marked the first phase of the conflict continued. The fact that no attempt was made on either side to carry the war into the enemy’s country during the first eight months of hostilities was the cause of surprise and bewilderment alike in Britain and in Germany. In Britain, it had been expected that terrific attacks would be made on London. In Germany, it was expected that they would be made against Berlin. Referring to the British declaration of war, Dr. Goebbels said in a speech at Poznan on 19 January, 1940: “One would have expected that on the afternoon of that very day their much-vaunted bombers would have appeared over Berlin.” In both capitals a measure of relief was felt that the bombing had not started at
zero hour or before it.
What was still more extraordinary was the failure of the Luftwaffe, on one side, and of the British and French air forces, on the other, to interfere with the great troop concentrations which took place in September 1939 and thereafter. As long ago as 1927 Lord Thomson, the former Secretary of State for Air, had written that “should such a calamity as another world war occur, hostilities will begin at once, there will be no breathing space of ten days or a fortnight for mobilization… . In these circumstances the embarkation of the British Expeditionary Force would have been hampered, if not prevented, and a number of our warships would
have been disabled before they could put to sea.”[xiii] Yet the British Expeditionary Force of 1939 had been able to embark, to cross to France, to disembark there and to move up to the line, without let or hindrance. There might have been no German air force whatever for all that that great army, moving with its impedimenta, knew about it in September 1939, or in the following months when reënforcements for it crossed to France. A still greater surprise, to the well-informed, was the abstention of the British and French bombers from interfering with the huge concentration of the German forces in the west. Britain had sent a strong “Advanced Air Striking Force” to France in the first days of the war; and the French had their striking force, too. Neither struck. Division after division moved from the east to the west of Germany. They did so in perfect peace. “The extraordinary thing,” wrote Mr. E. Coleston Shephard, “is that while they held the initial command of the air in the west, the French and British Air Forces did not attempt to prevent the swift transfer of troops by concentrated bombing on railway junctions, roads and aerodromes up to a hundred miles or more behind the German lines.
The bombing fleets had been built for just such a purpose.” [xiv] Not until after the end of the war shall we know, probably, the full reasons for the strange quiescence in the air in its early stages. Prima facie it appears as if each side lost a golden opportunity. It is evident that none of the belligerents was inclined to initiate air attack upon the enemy’s territory. Why each of them held back is not entirely clear, though many different reasons could be suggested for the mutual restraint. At the back of all the reasons there was, one must surmise, the working of the balance of air power. Each feared the other’s riposte. In a speech at the Rheinmetal-Borsig armament factory on September 9, 1939, Field Marshal Göring said: “If the British aeroplanes fly at tremendous heights at night and drop their ridiculous propaganda in German territory, I have nothing against it. But take care if the leaflets are replaced by one bomb. Then reprisals will follow as in Poland.” (Later, the propaganda film, “Baptism of Fire,” was made in Germany to show what this threat of frightfulness meant in practice.) “We shall return blow for blow,” said M. Daladier on November 30. “If the destructive fury of the enemy falls upon our villages we shall strike back at him with the same harshness.” When in a raid upon Scapa Flow on March 16, 1940, bombs were dropped on Orkney Mainland and one civilian was killed and seven were wounded, the Royal Air Force promptly retaliated, on March 19, by bombing the German air base at Hörnum in the island of Sylt. About three months earlier the German official news agency had alleged that bombs had been dropped on Hörnum and another small town in Sylt (Rantum). This was at once denied by the British Air Ministry, and a similar denial was issued on February 10, 1940, when it was again alleged in Germany that Hörnum and Rantum had been attacked. Not until after the invasion of Norway was
Sylt again bombed; the aerodrome at Westerland was heavily raided on the night of April 23-24. That the raid was not intended to mark a departure from the general policy was implied in the Air Ministry’s announcement that it (as well as the raid on Aalborg aerodrome in Denmark) was directed “against air bases available to the enemy for use in the invasion of Norway.”
Norway itself was not included in the unexpressed ban, and that unfortunate country experienced the full measure of German Schrecklichkeit from the air. Not only towns like Namsos, Aandalsnes, Elverum and Stenkjer, but many villages were largely destroyed, and peaceable inhabitants were machine-gunned on various occasions. The Germans had a marked superiority in the air and exploited it to the full. It was, indeed, that superiority which forced the Allies to abandon the idea of capturing Trondheim. “Intense and continuous bombing of the bases at Aandalsnes and Namsos prevented the landing of any large reinforcements,” said Mr. Churchill in the House of Commons on May 8, 1940, “and even of artillery for the infantry already landed, and of many supplies. It was therefore necessary to withdraw the troops or leave them to be destroyed by overwhelming forces.” It was Germany’s superiority in the air which brought Britain’s intervention in Central Norway to a premature and unsatisfactory end, and it was the same superiority which deterred the Allies from taking the initiative in raiding military objectives in Germany. There were hundreds of objectives there simply shrieking for attention from their longrange bombers. There were the oil-fuel installations, for instance. Yet it was not until May 17 that any attempt was made to destroy these vital sources of Germany’s armed strength. On that night British bombers attacked the petrol storage tanks at Hamburg and Bremen; they repeated the operation on later occasions and included the tanks at Hannover also, for luck, and by the end of September the oil refineries at Hamburg, Bremen and Hannover had been bombed no less than 36, 31 and 19 times respectively. The Germans at once complained that the Royal Air Force had killed 29 people and injured 51 in the raid on Hamburg. Possibly they had, but then civilians are likely to suffer if they are in the vicinity of military targets. In subsequent communiqués the German High Command charged the British Air Force with making “random attacks” on non-military objectives. That allegation was only to be expected; it was a good opening for propaganda. What is quite certain is that British airmen did not deliberately attack noncombatants. They aimed solely at military objectives.
The policy of waiting before carrying the war into Germany was defended by Mr. Churchill in a speech at Manchester on January 27, 1940. He asked, Ought we to have begun bombing? No, he said, our policy was right. We were not as well prepared as Germany. We were now much better organized and stronger in defences than at the beginning of the war. There had been, he said, a great advance in the protection of the civil population and in the punishment which would be inflicted upon the raiders. There were others who took a different view, but the question was a very difficult one. Many prominent people were far from satisfied with Britain’s policy of restraint. Mr. Amery and Mr. Duff Cooper, both out of office at the time but soon to become ministers again, pleaded in public for the adoption of much sterner methods. The view of the aeronautical world was reflected in The Aeroplane, which kept hammering away at the same point. Why on earth, the editor, Mr. Colston Shephard, asked in effect, were we not hitting at Germany’s strength at its source and bombing Dessau, Bremen, Rostock and Oranienburg, where dozens of new aeroplanes were being produced every week to be used
against us? Lord Trenchard, the greatest figure in British military aviation, added his powerful support to their plea. In the House of Lords on May 8, 1940, he asked why we waited, and said that if it was because we had promised not to bomb “open towns,” this meant that Germany need not retain any defences at home. Nobody, he added, wanted to kill civilians, but the British people would not shrink from facing whatever risk was necessary to bring the war to a successful conclusion. “Make no mistake about it,” he said. “When it suits Germany’s book she will hit open towns and all, mercilessly and thoroughly. Why should we await her convenience before striking at German military might in Germany?”
Lord Trenchard’s words were prophetic. It suited Germany’s book to begin bombing the homelands of the western Allies in the second week of May, when she attacked Holland, where a whole district of Rotterdam was practically wiped out, and Belgium, where the cities of Tournai, Louvain, Nivelles and Namur were savagely bombed. German bombers also attacked aerodromes and railway stations at a large number of French towns Nancy, Lyon, Lille, Colmar, Luxeuil, Pontoise, Béthune, Lens, Hazebrouck, Abbeville and Laon. Some 44 bombs were dropped, too, by a German aircraft in a wood in Kent where they did no damage; they were probably jettisoned. The Allies on their side bombed aerodromes, troop concentrations, mechanized columns on the move, bridges, and roads behind the German lines. The war in the air was thus carried for the first time into the enemy’s country.
Since then the incursions of the Royal Air Force into Germany and of the Luftwaffe into Britain have steadily increased in frequency and vigor. Those of the British airmen have been aimed exclusively at impairing Germany’s military strength. Oil refineries, synthetic oil plants and petrol storage depots have been among the chief targets. Not only in western Germany but also as far away as at Leuna in central Germany, at Pölitz (near Stettin) on the Baltic, and at Regensburg on the Danube have Germany’s oil fuel installations been raided with damaging effect. Other objectives of importance for the German war effort have also been attacked unremittingly. The aircraft factories in which the Focke-Wulf, Dornier, Fieseler, Junkers, Gotha and Messerschmitt machines are constructed or assembled have been bombed. So have the aero-engine works of the B.M.W. and DaimlerBenz firms. The great Fokker factory at Amsterdam was heavily raided as soon as it had been brought into operation for German purposes. The rail and canal communications of western Germany have been repeatedly bombed. The great railway centre of Hamm, which serves as a clearing house for the whole of the goods traffic of western Germany, was attacked no less than sixty times in the three months which ended on September 30. The aqueduct of the Dortmund-Ems canal, which carries the equivalent of 400 train-loads daily and serves as the chief link between the Rhineland and northwest and central Germany, has been put out of action, repaired, and put out of action again. The naval dockyards and ports of Hamburg, Bremen, Wilhelmshaven, Kiel and Cuxhaven have been the objectives of recurrent attacks. Indeed, the whole of Germany’s industrial and economic system has been seriously affected by the incessant blows rained upon it by the Royal Air Force. These have ranged as far afield as Pilsen, in Czechoslovakia, where the great Skoda armament works were successfully bombed on the night of October 27 a feat eclipsed by the British Bomber Command four days later, when oil plants and military objectives at Naples were attacked by aircraft starting from England.
So great, indeed, was the effect of those blows that the menace to the effectiveness of Germany’s war machinery was already becoming evident in the summer. Something had to be done to bring the activities of the British bombers to an end. The obvious course was, if possible, to invade and overrun Britain just as France and the other victims of Germany’s armed might had been invaded and overrun, or, if that was not possible, at least to drive the British Air Force out of the sky. Invasion was the solution preferably by sea, land and air; but by air alone, if the other alternatives could not be achieved. So in the autumn of the year all the necessary preparations were put in hand for loosing a combined attack upon southeast England and, as a preliminary to that attack, for overwhelming the Royal Air Force in that corner of the country. There is reason to believe that first one and then another date was fixed for the launching of the grand assault. The first was in midAugust. To gain command of the air, an essential condition for the success of the invasion by sea and land forces, a mass attack was launched against the air bases in southern England on August 15. A veritable armada of bombers and fighters came over the coast. The bombers were largely Junkers 87 dive-bombers, “Stukas,” as they are called, the machines which, in combination with mechanized columns and tanks, had enabled the Germans to smash their way through northern France in May and June. There were thousands of these machines in the Luftwaffe, and thousands more of the Junkers 52 troopcarrier, which had also played a prominent part in Germany’s successes, notably in Norway and Holland. The stage was never reached at which the Ju-52’s could be used against Britain. The Ju-87’s were used and the tale was a sorry one for their pilots and crews.
Already the dive-bombers had been handled roughly by the Spitfires, Hurricanes and Defiants of the Royal Air Force over the beaches of Dunkirk. When they ventured over the English coast they suffered more severely still. Nine of them were shot down in a few minutes by a Spitfire squadron near Southampton on August 13, but it was on August 15 that they were veritably massacred. On that day the Luftwaffe lost 180 aircraft over and around southern England; the slaughter of the Stukas really sealed the fate of the first project of invasion.
The August plan had come to naught. The next attempt was more carefully planned. It was fixed, apparently, for mid-September. Early in that month the Germans began to concentrate barges, shipping and light naval forces in the ports along the Dutch, Belgian and northern French coasts, with the intention of making a sudden dash across the English Channel. The Royal Air Force foiled that plan, too. It struck again and again at the concentrations of light craft, first at the mouth of the Scheldt and at Ostend, then, when they were moved westward, at Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne and Le Havre, and finally even at Lorient in the Bay of Biscay. One particular onslaught was a veritable disaster for the would-be invaders. It coincided with a dress-rehearsal for the invasion; on that night the barges were packed with fully equipped troops, who were caught unawares by the British bombers. Many were killed, many drowned, others burnt by the blazing oil which covered the sea after incendiary bombs had been dropped and the tanks of the barges had been set on fire. To that disaster in the tidewater was added another, which befell the Luftwaffe about the same time. On September 15 a second mass attack was made on southern England in the air and routed even more decisively than that of a month before. The definitely confirmed losses of German aircraft on that day amounted to 185; it is highly probable that in reality not less than 232 machines were destroyed. No such destruction of
aircraft in one day has been known in the annals of war. It was undoubtedly the inability of the German air force to penetrate the British defence by day which inspired the savage attacks by night upon London and other cities in Britain. Those attacks were a confession of failure. The Luftwaffe had not been trained for night operations. It was in this respect both technically and professionally far inferior to the Royal Air Force. The latter, as a result in part of the “leaflet raids” carried out during the winter of 1939-40, knew the darkened face of Germany as well as it knew that of England. Its personnel was highly skilled in night flying. Its matériel was, for this purpose, superior to Germany’s. The pilots and bomb-aimers had been trained to a pitch not even approached by those of the Luftwaffe. Precision of aim was inculcated and practised. Long periods were spent in the search for and exact location of targets. If the designated objective could not be found, and if no alternative target could be bombed with reasonable precision, no attack was launched. Bombs cost money and it is folly to dump them where they can do no harm. Frequently a full bomb-load has been brought home because it could not be dropped on a military objective. There is nothing of blind or indiscriminate bombing in the work of the Royal Air Force. A similar statement cannot be made of the Luftwaffe, as those who, like the present writer, reside in the outskirts of London far from any military objective, and whose houses have suffered from the incompetence it was that, probably, rather than malice of the German airmen, have practical reason for affirming without any hesitation whatever. While these words are being written, the callous, ham-fisted bombing of London continues. Defence in the air has proved to be more effective by day, less effective by night, than had been expected. In time, no doubt, a solution of the problem of the night bomber will be found. That time may possibly be soon. Meanwhile we have to grin and bear our adversity, and that is what in fact we are doing. There is no likelihood whatever that the random, indiscriminate attack to which the once-chivalrous German air force is subjecting the civilian population of London and other cities will break their spirit. Rather, it is steeling them to a grimmer determination to put an end to the régime which can slaughter women and children as a mere incident of its march to world-domination, to stop the wheels of the Nazi juggernaut for all time. It will do something more, too: it will give British air power a freer hand when the day of reckoning comes. There will be little mercy then for the butchers of the air. The day of reckoning is coming. The air strength of Britain and the Empire is being marshalled. The Luftwaffe is still numerically stronger than the Royal Air Force. Mr. Churchill stated, however, in his speech in the House of Commons on August 20, that the new production of aircraft in Britain is already considerably larger than Germany’s, and, he added, the American production was then only beginning to flow in. Soon it will be a flood. Some 500 aircraft are believed to be coming each month from the United States. The number will increase to 700 by the end of the year and to 1000 by the early summer of 1941. Canada, we know from statements by two of her ministers, Mr. Power and Mr. Gibson, will be sending 360 aircraft a month by then. Britain expects to overtake the German lead in 1941, Mr. Churchill stated on October 8. In his broadcast to the French people on October 21 he was still more definite and said that in 1941 Britain would have command of the air.
The British Air Force, already qualitatively superior to the German, will soon be better still. Air Marshal Sir Philip Joubert stated in a broadcast on October 24 that the new machines soon to come into operation will be as distinct an advance upon the existing ones as they were upon their predecessors. New American aircraft of very high
performance are also under construction. The Bell, Brewster, Curtiss and Lockheed fighters, the Douglas, Boeing and Martin bombers, will be a most important supplement to the new and improved types of both classes now on the stocks in Great Britain. The Coastal Command of the Royal Air Force knows, from its experience with the Lockheed Hudson, about the quality of American machines; and the new Lockheed Vega is understood to be a super-Hudson. There will be advances in German quality, too, no doubt; but Britain, with American help, should be well able to keep her lead. When it is a quantitative lead also, then the end of this great struggle will be near at hand. The first lesson of the second phase of the air warfare has been, as stated at the beginning of this article, the swiftness and decisiveness with which the combination of superior strength on the ground and in the air became effective. What was involved there was the overrunning of a weaker belligerent whose land frontier marched with that of a more powerful neighbor. What of belligerents separated by the sea? Will sea power plus air power be able to bring about a decision? This lesson remains to be learned. Already it has been established that sea power has not been materially affected by the coming of the aeroplane. Destroyers, sloops, minesweepers have been sunk by air action. Larger warships have, in general, been immune. Usually, it has been the aircraft and not the ship which has had to lick its wounds after the encounter. What has not yet been proved is whether sea power and air power can overcome land power and air power. That is really the crux of the matter as between Britain and Germany. There will be encounters, no doubt, on land. In the Middle East there will be a clash of armies. The war will not be decided there, however, though it appears probable that the result of Mussolini’s attack on Greece will be to give British sea and air power alike footholds from which shattering blows can be aimed at Italy’s naval and air bases and her maritime communications with her expeditionary forces. The success of the fleet air arm at Taranto may be the first of a series of strokes which will end in knocking Italy out of the ring. Unfortunately, Germany may not be the weaker on that account. The vital theatre will still be in the west of Europe. No triumphs elsewhere will profit Germany or Italy if the island of Great Britain remains inviolate and defiant. If that outpost of the British Empire still holds out, and if British strength on the sea and in the air is unbroken and increases as increase it will the Axis cannot win this war, however far it extends its conquests elsewhere. Given the achievement of the task which the British nations have undertaken to mass overwhelming strength in the air the Axis must lose. It will be crushed in the grip of two mighty forces, sea power and air power, against which land power, backed by air power that is outmatched, will find it useless to struggle. That, one makes bold to predict, will be the lesson of the third phase of the war.
Notes
[i] Editor’s Note: See “The War in the Air: First Phase,” by J. M. Spaight, FOREIGN AFFAIRS, January 1940.
[ii] “The Military Strength of the Powers,” New York, 1939, p. 61. [iii] In L’Air, July 1939.
[iv] Articles in Sunday Times, April 8, 1939, and June 4, 1939. [v] “L’Aviation Soviétique,” 1938, p. 7.
[vi] Statement by Mr. Chamberlain in the House of Commons, March 19, 1940.
[vii] See, e.g., The Times, December 8, 1939.
[viii] “My Finnish Diary,” 1940, p. 42.
[ix] Ibid., p.56.
[x] The Times, January 30, 1940, report from correspondent at Stockholm.
[xi] See the Daily Telegraph of February 10, 1940.
[xii] Article by G. L. Steer on “Looking Back on the Reasons for Finland’s Heroic Failure,” Daily Telegraph, February 8, 1940.
[xiii] “Air Facts and Problems,” 1927, pp. 21-22. [xiv] The Aeroplane, October 5, 1939.
Third Phase
VIEWED in the perspective of history, the year 1941 will probably be judged to have reserved its most important event, vitally affecting the fortune of war by air, land and sea, until near its close.[i] That event was the entry of the United States into the conflict as a full belligerent. The
casus belli was itself an act of air warfare as treacherous an act, and as effective for the moment, as Germany’s blow at Poland on September 1, 1939. Japan’s sudden stroke from the air at the American naval and air forces at Pearl Harbor on December 7 was a crime. It was also a blunder. The losses inflicted, grievous as they were, were perhaps the lowest price necessary for bringing the vast American nation as a grimly determined unit into the struggle for freedom. The tremendous tidings from the west in the fateful days from December 7 to 11 were dimmed for British ears by the shattering reverberation of the sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse on December 10 again an epochal event of the war in the air. But it was not that disaster which even then mattered most. The far greater event was the crossing by the United States of the last interval between peace and war.
The year 1941 had already been notable in the annals of air warfare. The one before had had as its outstanding feature the defeat of the Luftwaffe by the Royal Air Force over and around Great Britain in the months of August and September. The next phase of the war in the air opened with another triumph. It was won far from the scene of the first, in the northeastern corner of Africa and over the eastern Mediterranean. There, in the period from November 1940 to February 1941, the British, South African, Australian and Rhodesian airmen practically drove the Italian airmen out of the sky. Never has any air force of an important Power been so roughly handled as was the Regia Aeronautica. Alike in personnel and matériel the British and Dominion Air Forces were definitely superior to the Italian, and this was the more remarkable because, so far as equipment went, it was the second string of the Royal Air Force that was entered for the contest. The British fighter machines then in the Middle East were Gladiators, and though they were practically obsolescent they quickly mastered the Italian fighters, most of which were Fiat CR.42’s, with some Macchi C.200’s and Fiat G.50’s. During the winter, Hurricane fighters were received, and at a later date Curtiss Tomahawks. Both proved even more clearly the masters of the Italian fighters than the Gladiators had been. The best British fighter, the Spitfire, was not used in the Middle East.
That was the first round in the contest for supremacy in the sky of North Africa. The second was fought when General Auchinleck’s forces invaded Libya on November 18, 1941. By then the Italian air force had been stiffened by detachments of the Luftwaffe, and the British and Imperial airmen had a much stiffer time of it than they had had during
General Wavell’s invasion. There was hard fighting in the air, but the Tomahawks, Hurricanes and Beaufighters operating with the British troops soon showed that they had little to fear from the opposing Me.109 and Macchi C.200 and C.202 fighters; and the Curtiss Kittyhawks which came into action in the opening days of 1942 at once established their mastery also. “The Royal Air Force are definitely on top,” the Cairo correspondent of The Times reported on December 6. The communiqués issued by British General Headquarters referred repeatedly during December to the powerful support given by the air to the ground forces. As the British columns advanced, tangible evidence of the effect of the bombing and machine-gun attacks was afforded in the shape of wrecked lorries and aircraft littering the route and the landing grounds. More than once the official reports referred to the devastation caused by the low-flying aircraft among the retreating Axis forces. In their operations the Imperial troops were also assisted materially by such raids as those of January 5 on Castel Vetrano aerodrome in Sicily, where some 44 German and Italian aircraft were destroyed and many others damaged by Blenheims in the afternoon and then by Wellingtons after nightfall.
The eclipse of the Regia Aeronautica at the beginning of 1941 was the more clearly displayed in the light of the better showing made by the Luftwaffe when it, too, appeared in the Mediterranean. The Germans gained a notable success on January 10, 1941. They sent their dive-bombers, recently arrived in Sicily, to attack a British convoy in the Sicilian Channel, with the result that the cruiser Southampton was so damaged that she had to be sunk by the other British warships. The aircraft carrier Illustrious only narrowly escaped a similar fate. Though crippled, she reached Malta, and there, as she lay in the Grand Harbor while makeshift repairs were being effected, she was repeatedly attacked by the German dive-bombers. She survived the onslaught and was able, after a few days, to make her way to Alexandria under her own power. Thence she was taken to the United States, where the major repairs that were necessary were carried out, and she was ready for service again in August 1941.
The German air force did not have matters all its own way. Of about 150 German aircraft based on Sicily at this time, nearly 90 were destroyed, some in the air, by British fighters, by the defenses of Malta and by naval gunfire, and some on the ground, by British bombing attack. Nevertheless, the continued presence of a German contingent made the part of the Mediterranean between Tunisia and Sicily unhealthy for British convoys. They were still able to pass through the Sicilian Channel, but only under powerful escort. The British fleet’s own aircraft, on the other hand, enabled it a little later to bring off a brilliant stroke in the central Mediterranean.
This occurred towards the end of March 1941, when an Italian naval force was sighted to the east of Cape Passero in Sicily. It was pursued by British warships, but might have escaped as Italian warships had done more than once before if naval aircraft had not slowed up its speed by scoring direct hits with torpedoes upon the largest of the Italian vessels, a battleship of the Littorio class. Blenheim bombers of the Middle East Command of the RAF also obtained hits. Aircraft thus played an important part in the practical annihilation of the Italian formation which the British naval ships thereupon carried out. Two months later, at the end of May, the Fleet Air Arm had a similar success. Aircraft from the carrier Victorious and Ark Royal scored hits with torpedoes upon the fleeing Bismarck, and the second of these attacks, delivered on the evening of May 26, had the effect of reducing the speed of the German battleship and allowed the heavy ships of the
Royal Navy to bring her to battle and to sink her on the morning of May 27. The pursuit of the Bismarck furnished evidence also of the great value of longrange flying boats in the tracking and shadowing of elusive enemy warships. It was a Catalina, built in California by the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation, which found the Bismarck on the morning of May 26, and another Catalina which shadowed her when the first had to turn back to its base.
Meanwhile, the Luftwaffe had been accomplishing a remarkable feat of arms in the Mediterranean. This was the capture of Crete in the teeth of the British command of seas lying between the island and Greece. Already in Greece the German dive-bombers had inflicted serious losses both on the British aircraft at their bases at Larissa and elsewhere, and on the warships which evacuated the expeditionary force after the collapse of the Graeco-British resistance in Macedonia; two destroyers and four transports were sunk as the result of air action in the evacuation. They followed up these successes by simply blasting the British garrison off Crete. It was the concentrated attack from the air rather than the landing of air-borne troops that led to the capture of the island. The parachute troops played an unimportant part in the whole operation; and the landing of soldiers from troop-carrying aircraft which made crashlandings became possible only because the divebombers had already done their work.
It was a very notable achievement. One must not forget, however, that it was accomplished in circumstances in which air defense was almost non-existent. The arrangements for protecting the aerodrome at Maleme were far from satisfactory. An attempt was made to cope with the German bombers by flying Blenheim fighters and Hurricanes, equipped with extra fuel tanks, from Egypt. It was a makeshift arrangement and failed completely to save the situation. The British Navy lost three cruisers and six destroyers in connection with the defense and evacuation of Crete. All were victims of air attack.
How vastly different the position would have been if the air attack on the island could have been met by fighter aircraft operating from adequate local bases is shown by the successful defense of Malta against incessant attacks by both Italian and German bombers. “The brilliant defense of the island by the Hurricanes” was given place of honor in the message of congratulation which Sir Archibald Sinclair, Secretary of State for Air, sent to Air Vice-Marshal H. P. Lloyd, commanding the Royal Air Force there, on August 20, 1941. Mention was made in the same message of the fine work done by the Beaufighters in attacking enemy bases, by the Wellington bombers in their “steady and deadly slogging,” by the (American) Marylands in their “daring and dexterous reconnaissances,” by the Blenheims of the Royal Air Force and the Swordfishes of the Fleet Air Arm in their “tremendous onslaught” on Axis shipping. “You are draining the enemy’s strength in the Mediterranean,” the message said. Air Vice-Marshal Lloyd in his reply said that “the hunting is certainly good, and hounds are in excellent fettle.”
The German raids on that other and more important island, Great Britain, had meanwhile diminished in volume. In the early part of the year the towns of South Wales, of Merseyside and of Clydeside were the chief sufferers, while London, too, had one or two unpleasant experiences. However, the combined casualties in January and February 1941 amounted only to about 5,350 civilians killed and seriously injured, as compared with a monthly average of 13,000 during the period September 1-December 31, 1940. In March there was a marked increase in the figures, which rose to nearly 10,000, largely as the
result of two heavy raids on Clydeside on successive nights. Merseyside, Bristol, Hull, London and Plymouth also suffered. The battle of the Atlantic had started and the British ports were therefore a main objective. The toll of life and limb rose again in April, when the total amounted to about 13,000 -mostly in Bristol, Coventry, Birmingham, Belfast, London and Plymouth (raided on five nights). May opened with severe attacks on Merseyside and Clydeside. London had one of its heaviest raids on the tenth. The experience gained during the incendiary attack of the preceding December 29, when a considerable section of the City of London was burnt out, enabled the fire-fighters to cope more adequately with the attacks of April and May. The casualty list for May amounted to approximately 10,500. June witnessed a substantial diminution in the weight of the onslaught, and the succeeding months saw a still further reduction. This was due mainly to the shifting of the chief theatre of air warfare from the west to the east. Germany was preparing for the treacherous blow which she struck at Russia on June 22. The improvement in the British defenses probably contributed, to a minor extent, to the slackening of the German attack. During May, 156 German bombers were destroyed at night, and it is fairly certain that many more, though not claimed as losses, never reached home. In April, which was the next best month, 87 had been destroyed. Thus the toll of the night-raiders for two months was nearly 250 aircraft. In one night (May 10-11) the number destroyed was 33, all but two of them by night-fighters. Two-seater twin-engined fighters had been brought into use for defense at night, and these, with the Hurricane single-seater single-engined fighters, soon proved their worth. One was the Defiant, which had first been employed as a day-fighter in the operations preceding the evacuation of Dunkirk at the end of May 1940, when it had destroyed 37 German aircraft on a single day. Its signal success on that occasion was due to the element of surprise; the German airmen had not expected to encounter a fighter whose armament could be swivelled on the beam. Its fourgun retractable turret was an innovation in fighter aircraft. Afterwards, the absence of a forward-firing gun made it a less formidable opponent for enemy pilots who had been warned of its limitations, and it was restricted mainly to night-fighting. The other and still more dangerous night-fighter was the Bristol-Beaufighter, which was a modification of the Beaufort, the torpedo-bomber used with great success against enemy shipping by the Coastal Command of the Royal Air Force. The Beaufighter has more powerful engines (Hercules) than the Beaufort (Taurus), and an extremely formidable armament, which consists of four 20 mm. shell-firing guns under the fuselage and six Browning machine guns in the wing.
Another twin-engined aircraft also proved a distinct acquisition to the RAF for defense at night. This was the American Douglas DB-7 medium bomber, which, as adapted for nightfighting, was renamed the Havoc. Its specialty is the “picketing” of enemy aerodromes at night. Its long endurance enables it to “sit over” the enemy bombers’base and to attack them when they try to land or take off. It secured many victims in this way in the spring of 1941 certainly more than the Junkers 88, used by the Germans for a like purpose, obtained in England.
Both the night-fighter pilots and the anti-aircraft gunners were indebted to the operators of the radiolocators for a substantial part of their successes. Radiolocation is a means of ascertaining the presence and locality of aircraft by utilizing the reflection of electromagnetic waves from solids (conductors or insulators) upon which the waves make impact; the great value of the new system is that it is not dependent on emission of waves
from the body to be located. The waves go out from and return to the operator. The necessity still remains, of course, for the pilot or the gunner on the ground to be informed of the location of the object the enemy aircraft and then to hit it, and that is not easy in moonless and cloudy nights.
Meanwhile the British counter-offensive had been proceeding and in June it took on a new intensity. Daylight raids, by Blenheim and Fortress bombers, were interspersed among the nightly attacks carried on by the Bomber Command. The daylight sorties were shared in by the fighters of the Royal Air Force, which accompanied the Blenheims in their raids upon objectives in the occupied countries across the English Channel and the southern waters of the North Sea, and also conducted independent sweeps over northern France and the Low Countries. The Blenheims usually carried out their raids at extremely low altitudes; in those directed against shipping at Rotterdam, for instance, on July 16 and August 28, the pilots flew at roof-top, or mast-top, level. The former of these two raids was particularly profitable. Seventeen ships, totalling nearly 100,000 tons, were sunk or put out of action for a long time, and five more, totalling 40,000 to 50,000 tons, were damaged. This was the return obtained for the cost of four Blenheims lost.
The inauguration of the daylight offensive did not slow up the tempo of the Bomber Command’s other operational program the attacking of Germany’s industries and communications on every possible night. On the contrary, the night-raiding increased in intensity after the invasion of Russia, the object being to compel the German High Command to retain in the homeland fighters which might otherwise have been used in the east, as well as to interrupt the communications essential for the reinforcement of the German armies in Russia. The bombers used were the Wellingtons, Hampdens and Whitleys. Hitherto these had been the instruments of the long-range offensive of the Royal Air Force; now, with their performance improved, they could carry both larger and more destructive loads, weight for weight, than in 1940. To these fine bombers, all twinengined, there were added another twin-engined one, the Avro Manchester, and two fourengined bombers, the Short Stirling and the Handley Page Halifax. All these were employed in the raids of the summer and autumn of 1941. The damage which they were able to inflict upon their targets was immensely greater than that caused in the raids of the preceding year. This was the result not so much of the heavier weights carried as of the greater blasting power of the heavier bombs dropped. The effect, it was officially stated, was five times as devastating as that of the bombs of similar size previously dropped. The new and more powerful bombs were dropped for the first time on the night of March 31, 1941, at Emden. A pilot who had taken part in thirty raids stated next day that he had never seen such an explosion it was like “a gigantic arc-welding flash, blinding white.” A little later great devastation was caused by the new bombs in Hamburg and Mannheim. At Hamburg a blast damaged an area of 75,000 square yards, and industrial buildings covering a space of 20,000 square yards were completely demolished. At Mannheim one area of devastation covered four-and-ahalf acres. The German propaganda service, apparently to reassure the populace, stated that the British had taken to dropping landmines because they were short of bombs. There was evidence in the summer that the Germans had strengthened very considerably the anti-aircraft defenses at all their important centres. Bomber crews reported a great increase in the numbers of searchlights and of guns. Night-fighters were also more active and numerous. On some nights the losses of British bombers were substantial. Weather
conditions were responsible in part for the increased casualties in one or two instances, as, for example, on the night of June 27, when twelve aircraft were missing after a raid on Bremen and other towns in northwest Germany. The raids of the nights of August 12 and 14 cost the Bomber Command thirteen and twelve aircraft respectively, and that of the night of September 7 cost twenty aircraft, but these were all very heavy raids and the percentage of loss was never as high as that suffered by the Luftwaffe in some of its raids on Britain during May (more than ten percent on some nights). On the night of November 7 there were 37 British bombers missing after raids which embraced Berlin, Cologne and Mannheim. This serious loss was due mainly to the very bad weather which the raiders encountered on their homeward flight. Again the percentage of loss, though substantial, was not catastrophic.
The second German air fleet which, commanded by Field Marshal Kesselring, had been stationed in northern France, was transferred to the eastern theatre of war when Russia was invaded, and squadrons from Field Marshal Sperrle’s third air fleet appear also to have been moved to the east. At any rate the offensive against Britain was reduced to almost negligible proportions during the remainder of the year. On some nights, though the weather was not such as to deter the raiders, none came at all, and on many others only one or two made a fleeting appearance. For that respite the people of Britain had to thank the gallant airmen of the Soviet Union. Before the German attack on Russia there had been a tendency to underrate, one might almost say to disparage, the value of the Red Air Force. Apparently that tendency was shared by the heads of the German Army and air service. Their assertion in the early days of the fighting in the east that Russian resistance in the air had already been shattered by the all-conquering Luftwaffe reflected, one may surmise, the Higher Command’s initial conception of the Russian strength in the air rather than the stern actuality. In one week of war, it was claimed, 4,107 Soviet aircraft had been destroyed; in eight weeks that figure had risen to 11,250; and by the beginning of December, according to Hitler’s speech to the Reichstag on December 11, 1941, to 17,323. This last figure could safely be halved to arrive at something near the truth. It is impossible, however, to give any close estimate of the real losses. The published figures, which were clearly exaggerated for the purpose of propaganda, included admittedly a large proportion of aircraft destroyed on the ground, and precise information on this point cannot have been available to the attackers. No doubt many were so disabled; the divebombers
the Junkers 87’s on one side and the Stormoviks on the other put a large number of machines out of action on the landing grounds and aerodromes. The Stormovik was one of the Soviet air force’s surprises, and another was the M.I.G.3 fighter, which took a heavy toll of the Luftwaffe. The Hurricanes of the British Air Force contributed their quota also. The Russians probably lost the more heavily, since their opponents had the great advantage of initiative and surprise. They still had a formidable air force in being at the end of the year, however, and in some areas were superior to the Germans. There is no doubt that in 1941 the Luftwaffe received in the east a hammering at least as damaging as that to which it had been subjected in the west in 1940. The effect of it was to be discerned in Mr. Churchill’s statement in London on November 10, 1941, that the British Air Force was now “at least equal in size and numbers, not to speak of quality, to the German air power.”
The resistance put up by the Red Air Force was, indeed, an extraordinarily fine
performance in the circumstances. It must have suffered severely in the first stage of the Blitzkrieg in the east; but it never cracked, and it came back at the assailant, resilient and full of offensive capacity. The effective defense of Moscow was proof that the Germans were far from having the complete ascendancy in the air which they claimed; if that claim had been true, the city would have been dealt with as mercilessly as were Warsaw, Rotterdam and Belgrade. In Russia, as in the west and in the Balkans, the Luftwaffe played a very important part in the successes achieved by the German mechanized forces, but it never dominated the air in the east, and at the end of the year Russia’s air fleet was helping her armies roll the Germans back along almost all the immense battle front. It was not only shooting down German aircraft but destroying hundreds of tanks and thousands of lorries as well as other equipment on the ground.
As on land, so on sea the intensity of the German attempt to smash or starve Britain into surrender diminished to some extent during the summer. The battle of the Atlantic continued, but the rate of sinking of British and Allied shipping decreased, especially in July and August. While a variety of causes contributed to the improvement, including the patrolling by American naval forces of the waters between Greenland and Iceland, the recurrent visits of the Royal Air Force to certain bases of vital importance on the German plan of blockade had an undoubted effect upon the situation. At Brest lay two powerful warships, the Gneisenau and the Scharnhorst, and from the end of May a third, the Prinz Eugen. Had these vessels been free to operate they might well have turned the vital war upon maritime commerce in Germany’s favor. They were prevented from doing so by the Royal Air Force. The repeated attacks from the air upon the berths which they occupied and the ships themselves, while not putting them completely out of action, rendered them unfit for service at the time when the battle of the Atlantic was at its height. When the Scharnhorst slipped out of Brest and took refuge at La Pallice, further south in the Bay of Biscay, she was attacked there by Stirling bombers on July 23, while the Gneisenau was attacked at Brest by Fortress bombers. The attacks were renewed on the same night and on the next day and had the effect of immobilizing the two warships for a further period. Other raids on the docks at Brest, where they and the Prinz Eugen were lying, were made at later periods. There were three within 36 hours on December 18-19, including a daylight raid by Stirling, Halifax and Manchester bombers, escorted by fighters. Another daylight raid was carried out on December 30 by Halifaxes, again escorted by fighters. Raids on the bases used by the U-boats and on the yards in which they were constructed or repaired was a further contribution made by the Bomber Command to the defense of Britain’s Atlantic life line. Meanwhile, that Command and the Coastal Command, and in the autumn the Fighter Command also, were waging war with great success upon Germany’s shipping in the North Sea and the English Channel, while in the Mediterranean the bombers of the Royal Air Force of the Middle East Command and the torpedo carrying aircraft of the Fleet Air Arm were inflicting heavy losses upon Italian shipping and making the reinforcement and supply of the Axis forces in Libya increasingly difficult. The Beauforts of the Coastal Command and the Swordfishes of the Fleet Air Arm accomplished some particularly brilliant exploits with their torpedoes in the North Sea and the Mediterranean respectively. The air warfare of 1941 was conducted, it is to be noted, with machines which were still of prewar design. The experience gained since the outbreak of hostilities was utilized to the extent that various improvements and modifications were embodied in existing types, but
the need for rapid and large-scale construction precluded a breakaway to new lines from the models which had been in service at the beginning of the war. Both fighters and bombers were equipped with engines which had been “boosted up,” and with more formidable armament, but they were substantially the old machines rejuvenated. It was only in 1941 that the change-over to the production of machines of wartime design was begun in the factories; and only in 1942 will the new models be seen in service in the squadrons. Even the Hawker Typhoon fighter, which is a type not yet available in quantity, was designed before the outbreak of war. In the air fighting of 1940 the British Spitfire and Hurricane established their claim to be the two best fighter aircraft in action. The improved versions of both these fighters again showed in 1941 that they had the whiphand of the (also improved) German fighters. The Heinkel 113, the diminutive fighter on which, it seems, German hopes of securing ascendancy in air combat had been placed, was apparently a disappointment. It was not encountered in numbers, and the German fighters seen in action were almost wholly Messerschmitt 109’s and 110’s. The Me.109F, the improved edition of the fighter so roughly handled by the pilots of the Fighter Command in 1940, differed from its predecessor mainly in having a higher ceiling and a greater rapidity of fire. Its armament was not, however, so formidable as that of the Spitfire Mark V and Hurricane Mark II, in which again the Royal Air Force could claim to possess the two best fighters in service. The shattering effect of the new Spitfire’s cannons was to be seen in the frequent references in the British pilots’ reports to enemy fighters blowing up or disintegrating in the air. The firepower of the new Hurricane has been found to be no less overwhelming; it has as alternative armament either four 20 mm. cannon or twelve machine guns, as compared with the two 20 mm. cannon and four machine guns in each of the new Spitfires. Hurricanes carrying two 250 pound bombs also came into use in the autumn of 1941.
In 1942 the weight and range of the British air offensive will be greatly increased and the losses sustained by both sides will be heavier than in the past. They will be made good, one can confidently predict, more easily by Britain than by Germany. The enormous production of the British and American factories (the latter had not in 1941 nearly approached the peak of their output), and the increasing flow of flying personnel trained under the Empire Air Training scheme, should together result by the autumn of 1942 in the assembly in Britain and the Middle East of an air strength so massive that Germany and Italy will not be able to muster an adequate defensive force against it. The first momentous American move in the struggle against totalitarian aggression adoption of the Lend-Lease Act in March 1941 has now been followed by the next logical step, the entry of the United States into the war as a full belligerent. With this the eventual defeat of the three Axis Powers becomes certain even though it may still be deferred. We know from President Roosevelt’s own words that the change of the United States to full belligerency will not cause its aid to the Allies to flag. His message to Congress of January 6, 1942, announcing a program of production of 60,000 aircraft in 1942 and 125,000 in 1943, was in effect a further assurance to that end. Given the continuance of that aid, virtual command of the air in western Europe and in the eastern Mediterranean should have passed to Britain by the close of 1942. And in the Far East, the powerful air arm of the United States Navy, working in partnership with the British and Australian Air Forces, should have established an ascendancy over Japan’s naval and military air arms.
Dornier 335 Pfeil
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kameraad is gaan doen,” zei hij tegen het drietal, „ik zal jelui zoo lang aan dezen boom vastbinden.”
Stil en geruischloos naderde hij nu zijn hut en zag daar tot zijn verbazing een allerbekoorlijkst meisje, dat druk bezig was, cassavebrood voor hem te bakken, terwijl hij de betooverde huid, die hem het geheim oplostte, tegen den hutpost zag hangen. Hij sprong nu de hut in, greep het vel met een verlicht hart, zeggende: „Niet langer zal dit bekoorlijk meisje, dat zich op deze wijze verbergt, [81]meer toovermacht over mij hebben”, en terwijl hij dit zei, wierp hij het vel in het vuur. Het meisje wilde het grijpen, om haar schoonheid te verbergen, en begon luid te weenen. Dit maakte blijkbaar indruk op hem, want hij riep uit: „Ga nu naar je vader; ik zal je volgen en je vragen, mijn schoone bruid.”
No. 7. Hoe lichaamspijnen, dood en ellende in de wereld kwamen. (C.)
Vroeger bestonden er geen twisten. Alle menschen leefden gelukkig; niemand werd ziek of stierf. In dien tijd waren de Joroka’s* gewoon onder ons als vrienden te leven. Zij waren kleine wezens, evenals wij. Het was vooral een dezer Joroka’s, die gewoon was ons te komen bezoeken, en dan paiwarri met ons te drinken. Hij kwam nagenoeg iedere maand terug. Den laatsten keer, toen hij ons bezocht, had hij de gedaante van een vrouw met een kind aan de borst.
De Caraïben lieten haar van den peperpot* meêëten, waarin zij haar cassavebrood doopte, het uitzoog en het daarna opat. Maar de peperpot was zóó heet, dat zij haar mond en haar binnenste leelijk brandde. Zij vroeg daarom haar gasten om water, maar deze beweerden, dat ze op dit oogenblik niets hadden. Joroka vroeg toen om een kalebas en terwijl zij haar kind achterliet, liep zij naar den waterkant, om haar pijn te stillen en haar dorst te lesschen.
Toen zij in de hut terug keerde en om haar kind vroeg, was het nergens te vinden. Zij zocht overal, boven en beneden in de hut, maar vond het niet. Wat was er gebeurd: een booze vrouw had het kind in haar afwezigheid in den kokenden peperpot gestopt.
Toen Joroka weêr trek begon te krijgen en, zich bij den peperpot neêrzettende, de kassiri met de roerspaan ging omroeren, rees plotseling haar kind omhoog. Joroka begon te schreien, en zich tot de omstanders wendende, [82]voer ze uit: „ik heb nooit iets slechts met jullie voorgehad, maar nu zal ik jullie deze daad betaald zetten. In het vervolg zullen al jelui kinderen sterven en dat zal jullie doen schreien, evenals ik nu schrei. En wanneer jelui kinderen geboren zullen worden, zal dat met pijn gepaard gaan. En verder”, zich nu tot de mannen wendende, ging Joroka voort, „wat jullie aangaat, de vischvangst zal voortaan niet gemakkelijk meer zijn”. En Joroka hield woord. Tot nu toe behoefden wij, Caraïben, met onze kalebassen maar naar de rivier te gaan, en de visschen zoo maar van den bodem uit te hoozen. En wanneer we alle visschen hadden uitgeschept, duurde het niet lang of wij vonden weêr nieuwe. Joroka heeft dit nu alles veranderd. Nu hebben wij zelfs allerlei middelen moeten bedenken, zelfs vergiften* moeten zoeken, om de visschen in onze handen te krijgen.
Toen Joroka haar wraakplannen had uitgeroepen, wierp zij zich op de slechte vrouw, die haar kind in den peperpot had geworpen, en sloeg haar met één slag neêr. Even daarna de kinderen der vrouw buiten de hut ziende, vroeg ze hun, waar hun moeder gebleven was. „Zij is naar de kostgronden gegaan”, antwoordden zij. „Neen”, riep Joroka hen beleedigend toe: „Ze is heen gegaan, om te zorgen, dat mijn stam zich zal vermeerderen”.32 En toen de kinderen op haar herhaalde vraag beweerden, dat zij weg was gegaan, om cassave te gaan halen, schreeuwde ze hun toe: „Neen, niet waar! Zij heeft haar weg door mijn oor geboord!” Voor de derde maal deed zij haar vraag en toen de kinderen ten antwoord gaven, dat zij was uitgegaan om zoete pataten* te oogsten, verdween Joroka onmiddellijk, toen zij het woord „pataten” hoorde.33 [83]
No. 8. Het hoofd van den Boschgeest en de nachtzwaluw. (A.)
Een man ging er eens op uit, om landkrabben* te vangen, en wachtte tot er regen kwam, omdat deze dieren dan hunne holen verlaten, om zich in de swampen te begeven. Toen de regen loskwam, nam hij, om te verhinderen, dat zijn haar nat zou worden, een kalebas en drukte deze zóó vast op zijn hoofd, dat er maar weinig haar onder uit kwam. Juist verscheen er een konokokoeja* en toen deze den man met zóó’n kaal hoofd zag, kon hij niet laten, hem toe te roepen: „Wat een mooi, glad hoofd heb je! Wat heb je gedaan, om er zoo uit te zien?” De man vertelde hem, dat hij zoo juist een snee om zijn hoofd had gemaakt, en het vel met haar en al er af had getrokken.34 Hij vroeg den Geest nu, of hij het bij hem ook even wilde doen.
De Boschgeest was hoogst verrukt, stond het toe, en zei zelfs er evenmin iets tegen te hebben, zijn hoofd met pepers* te laten bestrooien, opdat de bloederige huid spoediger zou genezen. Maar toen de man dit gedaan had, begon hij van pijn zóó hevig te kermen, dat de jager bang werd en zich, zoo gauw hij kon, uit de voeten maakte.
Lang na dit voorval, zeker verscheidene jaren, toen de jager weêr eens in het bosch was en juist voorbij de plek kwam, waar hij den Boschgeest zoo had toegetakeld, verscheen dezelfde konokokoeja, dien hij herkende aan de pepers, die op zijn hoofd tot heele struiken waren opgegroeid.
De Boschgeest had den jager ook herkend, en naar hem toekomende, riep hij uit: „Jij bent de man, die mijn hoofdhuid met haar en al er af heeft genomen. Ik zal je nu doodmaken”. Maar de jager antwoordde: „Je vergist [84]je; ik was het niet. Degeen, die het deed, is al lang dood. Ga met me meê en ik zal je bij zijn gebeente brengen”. De man bracht toen den Boschgeest naar een plek, waar een hoop hertebeenderen lagen.
De Boschgeest nam ze een voor een op, en toen hij ze in zijn waiyarri* had gedaan, zei de man: „Kom, laten we nu gaan dansen, dan zullen zijn beenderen rammelen.” Terwijl zij samen dansten, zong de Boschgeest: „Jij was het, die mijn hoofd zoo toegetakeld heeft. Jij was het, die mij gestraft heeft. Hoe vind je het nu, dat je beenderen muziek maken?”
Na eenigen tijd zei de jager: „Deze plaats is niet goed om te dansen. Laten we een mooien, platten steen opzoeken; daar zal het beter op gaan.” Na eenig zoeken vonden ze zoo’n steen. „Buig je hoofd wat meer voorover”, zei de man, „je houding is niet goed”. De Boschgeest deed het, maar zijn gezel vond het nog niet laag genoeg, en toen hij het hoofd van den Boschgeest na lang aandringen eindelijk vlak bij den steen had gekregen, sloeg de jager het met één slag op den steen te pletter. Zóó hard was de slag aangekomen, dat zijn schedelbeenderen overal in het rond vlogen.
En wat gebeurde er? Uit elk stuk kwam een Wokoraiyoe (nachtzwaluw*) te voorschijn.
Daarvan komt het nu, dat de Indianen altijd zoo bang zijn voor deze vogels, want zij waarschuwen altijd voor gevaren. Moeielijkheden van allerlei aard volgen altijd, zeggen zij, wanneer deze vogels zich laten hooren.
No. 9. De vrouw, die een Boschgeest nabootste. (A.)
Eens op een dag ging een Arowak op de jacht en nam zijn vrouw meê35. Toen hij haar op een morgen in de [85]banab* achterliet, waarschuwde hij haar, alvorens te vertrekken, dat, wanneer een Jawahoe voorbij kwam en deze als een vogel begon te fluiten, zij nalaten moest, te probeeren het geluid na te bootsen, want dat anders haar beide voeten onmiddellijk in een scherpen steen zouden
veranderen. Toen zij zich echter daar zoo eenzaam begon te voelen, dacht zij, toen zij een vogel hoorde fluiten: „Wacht, ik zal hem roepen.” Maar nauwelijks had zij het geluid nagebootst, of de Jawahoe—want de vogel was een Boschgeest—werd razend en veranderde oogenblikkelijk elk harer voeten in een puntigen steen. Ook haar hart veranderde hij in steen36. Hierdoor kwam het, dat de vrouw woest en hard werd jegens haar man, en dat zij hem, toen hij ’s avonds van de jacht terugkeerde, onmiddellijk wilde dooden.
Maar toen de man begreep wat er gebeurd was, zette hij het op een loopen en rende hij zoo gauw hij kon om een kreek te bereiken, waarin hij onderdook en haar overzwom. Toen hij aan den anderen oever weêr boven kwam, rustte hij wat uit.
De vrouw was haar man achterna gerend, en toen zij bij de kreek kwam en haar man niet zag, dacht zij: „hij zal zich zeker verborgen hebben tusschen de biezen of in de modder”. Met haar puntige steenen begon zij overal om zich heen te trippelen, uiting gevend aan haar kwaadaardigheid, en zij riep daarbij: „ruwe klant, wacht, ik zal je wel pakken. Ik weet wel wat ik met je zal doen.”
Zij wist echter niet, dat haar man dit alles hoorde, en haar steeds glimlachend aanzag. Zij bleef echter, al maar vloekende, voortstampen, totdat zij met een harer steenen voeten in een alligator stak, dien ze daarna naar den oever sleepte. Hier ging zij nog maar voort met steken, daar zij vast geloofde, dat het haar man was, dien zij zoo toetakelde. [86]
Toen zij over haar werk voldaan was, keerde zij naar haar banab terug. Haar man echter liep naar zijn hut en toen hij daar aankwam, vroegen zijn schoonbroeders hem waar hun zuster was gebleven. Hij vertelde hun het gebeurde, maar de beide mannen wilden er eerst niets van gelooven, en toen zij dreigden, hem te zullen dooden, zei hij: „kom meê, dan zal ik de plaats aanwijzen, waar het gebeurd is”.
Zoo gezegd zoo gedaan, en toen zij bij het tijdelijk verblijf in het bosch waren aangekomen, was de vrouw nergens te vinden. Haar man bootste nu Jawahoe’s gefluit na—nu de Geest niet in de nabijheid was en te ver was om het te kunnen hooren, kon er geen kwaad gebeuren— en onmiddellijk kwam zij met haar steenen voeten woedend aanloopen, gereed om niet alleen haar man, maar ook haar broêrs te vernietigen. Maar deze waren gewaarschuwd, en voordat zij nog iets kon doen, joegen zij haar een pijl door het lichaam.
Toen de broêrs hun zuster dood zagen liggen, erkenden zij dat hij waarheid had gesproken.
No. 10. De Geest van een schimmelplant* redt een Indiaansch meisje. (C.)
Twee meisjes bleven volgens haar eigen verkiezing alleen in een hut achter, terwijl de ouders een drinkpartij bijwoonden. De ouders hadden er bij de dochters op aangedrongen, dat zij mede zouden gaan, doch deze hadden er geen lust in. Tegen zonsondergang daalde nu een Joroka van een nabijstaanden kankantrie: hij had pijl en boog, waarmeê hij een papegaai schoot. Hij bracht den vogel aan de beide meisjes en verzocht haar het dier te koken, en niet wetende, dat de bezoeker een Boschgeest was, voldeden zij maar al te gretig aan zijn verzoek. Toen zij gezamenlijk den vogel hadden verorberd, [87]verdween hij met een zwaai in zijn hangmat, die hij had opgehangen. Joroka vroeg het jongste meisje, hem gezelschap te komen houden, maar deze, er niet toe geneigd, zond haar oudere zuster in haar plaats.
Het duurde eenigen tijd, toen de jongste een vreemd geluid en daarbij huilen hoorde, dat uit de hangmat van den bezoeker kwam. Het geluid werd steeds erger, en nadat zij het vuur wat opgerakeld had, vermande zij zich en ging naar de hangmat toe, waaruit zij tot haar grooten schrik bloed zag druppelen. En nog heviger schrok zij, toen zij haar zuster
dood in de hangmat zag liggen. De bezoeker zelf was verdwenen, maar aan bepaalde kenteekenen begreep zij, tot welken stam de bezoeker behoorde. Om aan een dergelijk lot te ontkomen, haastte zij zich nu naar buiten en liep zij naar het met maïs beplante veld, dat haar eigendom was en dat door de schimmel geheel was aangetast en verrot was; in dit veld verborg zij zich. Ten einde zich nog beter te beveiligen, waarschuwde zij den Geest der schimmelplant, hem op het hart drukkend, dat, wanneer Joroka haar hier mocht vinden en haar mocht pakken, zij hem aan geen koren meer zou helpen.37
In den vroegen ochtend verscheen Joroka en vroeg aan den Geest van de schimmel, of hij ook een meisje had gezien, maar deze gaf geen antwoord, daar hij druk bezig was de maïs te eten (d.w.z. aan te tasten).
Joroka ging toen aan het zoeken, overal tusschen door kruipend, maar toen hij haar met het aanbreken van den dag nog niet had gevonden, moest hij wel naar zijn verblijf in den kankantrie terugkeeren.
Het arme meisje had den geheelen nacht tusschen de maïs rondgekropen, en eerst toen de zon hoog aan den [88]hemel stond, durfde zij er uit op te rijzen. Zij zocht nu haastig het pad op, dat naar hare hut leidde en ontmoette er hare verwanten, die juist van de drinkpartij terugkeerden. Zoodra zij hen zag, begon ze te huilen en te schreeuwen. „Wat is er voor naars?” vroeg haar moeder. „De Komaka*Joroka heeft mijn arme zuster gedood”, antwoordde zij. „Zie je nu wel”, klaagde de moeder, „jelui had met ons meê moeten gaan, inplaats van alleen achter te blijven”.
Zoodra nu allen in de hut waren teruggekeerd, vonden zij van het lichaam der gedoode zuster niets meer over en zij haastten zich nu met de pepers, die zij bijeen konden rapen, de manden te vullen, om er mede naar de Komaka-boom te gaan, dien de dochter spoedig als het verblijf van Joroka had aangewezen.
Een groot vuur werd nu om den boom aangelegd, en daarin peper gestrooid. Een groote Joroka-familie moest wel in dien Komaka huizen,
want toen de prikkelende rook in den boom omhoog steeg, kwamen talrijke kleine baboens* naar beneden, met welke het vuur korte metten maakte. Nog meer pepers werden nu in het vuur geworpen, en talrijke baboens en veel grootere daalden naar beneden en ondergingen hetzelfde lot.
De ouders wierpen nu de rest van de pepers in het vuur, en daar kwam Joroka zelf, die de oudste dochter had gedood, naar beneden, en, terwijl de vader hem toeriep: „ik dood je, om mij te wreken op den dood mijner dochter”, brachten zij hem met hun allen om. Het lichaam van Joroka werd nu geopend, en zij vonden er vrouwenvleesch in.
Van dien tijd af heeft de jongste dochter altijd hare ouders gehoorzaamd. [89]
No. 11. Een jagoear, die in een vrouw veranderde. (A.)
Er was eens een man, die uitmuntte in het jagen van boschvarkens.
Hoewel zijn vrienden in het bemachtigen van ander wild misschien bekwamer waren dan hij, vond hij in het bemeesteren van piengos* zijns gelijken niet. Het gelukte hem altijd 5 of 6 van deze dieren te dooden, terwijl de jagoear, die steeds piengo-troepen achtervolgt, er nooit meer dan een of twee in één keer te pakken kon krijgen. De jagoear kon niet nalaten, van het benijdenswaardige succes goede nota te nemen, en bij de eerste de beste gelegenheid, dat onze vriend in het bosch verscheen, veranderde hij zich in een vrouw
Deze vroeg toen den gelukkigen jager, hoe hij het toch wel aanlegde, zooveel boschvarkens te schieten; maar alles wat hij vertellen kon, was, dat hij er zich van jongs af aan in geoefend had. Zij antwoordde, dat zij vurig wenschte, zijn vrouw te mogen zijn; maar hij, wetende, waar zij vandaan was gekomen, was niet erg begeerig een beslist antwoord te geven. Zij, van haar kant, hield aan en beduidde hem, dat wanneer zij
samen leefden en samen op jacht gingen, altijd meer dieren zouden bemachtigen, dan wanneer zij er alleen op uitgingen. Eindelijk stemde hij toe.
Lang, heel lang leefden zij gelukkig; want zij was een goede huisvrouw en behalve dat zij uitstekend kon koken en barbakotten*, bleek zij ook goed te kunnen jagen. Eens op een dag vroeg zij aan haar man, of hij geen vader of moeder meer had; en toen zij hoorde, dat beiden nog in leven waren, gaf ze hem haar wensch te kennen, hun een bezoek te brengen; „want”, zei ze, „als je zoo lang wegblijft, zullen ze denken, dat je dood bent”. En toen de man antwoordde: „Goed, ik wil graag gaan” verzocht ze hem te mogen vergezellen en hem den weg te mogen wijzen, echter op voorwaarde, dat hij nooit aan zijn verwanten zou vertellen, wie zij was. Voor zij [90]gingen vertrekken, drong zij er op aan, eerst nog voor een paar dagen op jacht te mogen gaan, om een voorraad varkensvleesch te kunnen meênemen. Alzoo deden zij, en toen zij aan de hut der ouders kwamen, werden zij door hen met vreugde ontvangen.
De eerste vraag, die de oude vrouw aan haar zoon deed, was natuurlijk: „Waar heb je die mooie vrouw van daan gehaald?” „Ik heb haar in het bosch gevonden, toen ik op jacht was”, antwoordde hij.
Tijdens het verblijf van het paar in de ouderlijke hut ging het paar iederen dag op jacht, en steeds keerde het met zooveel doode varkens terug, dat verwanten en vrienden achterdochtig werden, en zich begonnen af te vragen, van welke afkomst de mooie vrouw toch wel zou zijn. Telkens probeerden zij dit te weten te komen, maar de man verraadde het geheim niet.
Zijn moeder echter, die niet ophield met vragen, werd op het laatst zóó ongerust, dat hij ten slotte alles eerlijk opbiechtte, haar uitdrukkelijk op het hart drukkend, aan niemand iets te vertellen, want, als zij het toch deed, zou zijn vrouw hem onmiddellijk verlaten.
Van dit oogenblik af begonnen echter de onaangenaamheden. Eens op een dag maakte het volk een goeden voorraad kassiri*, met de bedoeling, de oude vrouw dronken te maken, en toen zij in den loop van den avond reeds aardig beneveld was, vroegen de menschen: „Wie is toch de vrouw van je zoon?” Maar zij hield haar mond. Het volk ging echter voort haar drank te voeren, totdat zij ten slotte, niet meer wetende wat zij zei, het geheim verklapte, en zei: „Mijn mooie schoondochter is eigenlijk een Jagoear”.
Maar nauwelijks had de jonge vrouw de woorden van haar schoonmoeder gehoord, of zij werd zóó beschaamd, dat zij brommend het bosch in vluchtte. Het was de laatste keer, dat men haar gezien heeft. [91]
De zoon verweet zijn moeder haar woordbreuk, maar deze verontschuldigde zich door te zeggen: „ik kon het heusch niet helpen; men heeft mij immers dronken gemaakt”.
Van dat oogenblik kwam de arme man nooit meer in het bosch zonder eerst om zijn vrouw te roepen. Maar nooit kreeg hij antwoord.
No. 12. De man met een Baboen-vrouw. (A.)
Hij was met pijl en boog ver het bosch ingegaan, om zich een voorraad wild te verschaffen. Maar hij zag niets en zijn wapens bleven ongebruikt. Ik vertel hier van een ouden Arowak, die heel lang geleden geleefd heeft. Laat in den namiddag echter schoot hij een baboen*; het bleek een wijfje te zijn. Het was al te laat, om er meê naar huis te gaan en daarom maakte hij een banab* om er den nacht in door te brengen. Toen hij er mede gereed was, sneed hij den staart van het dier af, roosterde dezen en deed er zijn maal mede. De rest van het lichaam legde hij op den barbakot*, om het den anderen morgen gerookt en gedroogd te hebben.
Toen hij den volgenden dag reeds vroeg het bosch weêr inging, was hij buitengewoon gelukkig, want hij keerde des avonds beladen met wild in de banab terug. Zijn verbazing kunt ge denken, toen hij, in zijn tijdelijk verblijf komend, een vrouw in de hangmat zag liggen en geen baboen op den barbakot vond. Niet begrijpende waar zij vandaan was gekomen, vroeg hij haar, wat ze daar deed. „Wel, ik had met je eenzaamheid te doen en kom je gezelschap houden; ik zal het vleesch voor je toebereiden”. Toen hij verder vroeg, verzekerde zij, dat er geen baboen op den barbakot was, toen ze hier aankwam. Maar de man begon haar afkomst een weinig te begrijpen, toen hij zag, dat haar vingers van nature [92]omgebogen waren38 en dat zij met haar eene hand moeite deed, de vingers van de andere hand te strekken. Hij vroeg haar toen, of zij niet zelf de baboen was, die zoo geheimzinnig verdwenen was. Maar zij bleef ontkennen. De vrouw zag er echter zóó goed uit, dat de man niet verder aandrong en besloot haar tot zijn vrouw te nemen.
… toen hij, in zijn tijdelijk verblijf komend, een vrouw in de hangmat zag liggen en geen baboen op den barbakot vond.
Zie blz. 91.
Zóó gelukkig leefden zij nu, dat zij geen enkel geheim meer voor elkander hadden. Eens op een dag vroeg de man weêr naar den verdwenen baboen en ditmaal bekende zijn vrouw, dat zij de baboen was, die hare gedaante had aangenomen; maar zij verbood hem dit aan iemand te vertellen.
Enkele dagen later verlieten beiden de banab, en gingen zij met een goeden voorraad wild op weg naar de hut van den man. Langen tijd leefden ze hier gelukkig. Het is waar, dat de man herhaaldelijk door zijn stamgenooten naar de afkomst zijner vrouw werd gevraagd; maar hij bleef zwijgen als een pot.
Eens op een morgen, toen zij in de vroegte de baboens weêr hoorden brullen, vertelde de vrouw aan haar man, dat haar ooms nu bezig waren, kassiri* te drinken en gaf hem te kennen, dat zij het prettig zou vinden, hun een bezoek te brengen en van de partij te zijn. De baboens waren bezig, op de uiterste takken van een hoogen mora*-boom hun vervaarlijk gebrul te laten hooren, en deze boom was dik genoeg, om een geschikt voetpad naar boven aan te leggen. Toen zij dit gereed hadden, togen zij op weg; steeds hooger en hooger klommen zij, totdat zij eindelijk in het echte Baboenland* waren aangekomen. Zij kwamen het eerst over den drempel van een groote hut. En wat hadden de baboens een hoeveelheid drank! En wat waren er een massa baboens, die aan het drinken [93]waren! Iedereen raakte dronken en begon daarop te brullen, terwijl zij allerlei vragen tot elkander richtten.
Al weêr werd nu onzen vriend naar de afkomst zijner vrouw gevraagd, en nu, denkende: „ik bevind mij te midden van haar eigen stam; nu mag ik toch wel de waarheid zeggen”, vertelde hij, dat zijn vrouw een echte baboen was. Niet zoodra had hij echter de verboden woorden gesproken, of alles—vrouw, drank, hutten en baboens—verdween
oogenblikkelijk. Geheel alleen bleef hij nu op den top van den hoogen Mora-boom achter.
Hoe moest hij nu naar beneden komen? Hij zat te hoog om omlaag te durven springen, en de stam was te kolossaal om zich naar beneden te laten glijden. Hij wist waarlijk niet wat te doen, en was de wanhoop nabij. Na eenigen tijd kwam er een Bunia*-vogel aanvliegen, die hem vroeg, wat hij daarboven zoo alleen uitvoerde; en toen de vogel vernam, hoe de arme kerel zijn vrouw had verloren, omdat hij verklapt had, dat zij tot de natie der Baboens behoorde, bood hij zijn hulp aan, om hem veilig en wel naar den grond te brengen.
De man was ontsteld en vroeg den vogel, hoe hij dit zou aanleggen; maar hij zei, dat hij hetzelfde middel zou toepassen, dat hij te baat neemt met de wortels van de Kofa*. Hij gehoorzaamde aan den gegeven raad en spoedig bereikte hij door middel van de naar beneden hangende wortels van den liaan den grond, en de man was in veiligheid.
Tot zoover ging het goed, maar nu wist hij nog niet waar hij was; hij kende geen middel om de richting naar zijn hut te vinden. Gelukkig kwam er nu een prachtige kolibri om hem heen vliegen, en nadat dit schitterend vogeltje had aangeboden, hem den weg te wijzen, vertelde het hem, dat hij maar te volgen had, waar het heen vloog. Maar de kolibri vloog te snel en de man kon niet [94]gauw genoeg volgen. Het diertje vloog toen weêr terug en begon opnieuw, nu de richting van een rechte lijn volgende, waarna het verdween.
De man volgde de lijn en kwam toen aan een pad, waar de kolibri hem opwachtte en hem zei: „Volg het pad”. De man deed zulks en bereikte eindelijk zijn hut.
No. 13. Schildpad, die Boschrat er in liet loopen. (C.)
Er was eens een tijd van langdurige droogte en voedselschaarschte, toen Boschrat*, bezig om eten te vinden Schildpad* tegenkwam, die ook probeerde wat van zijn gading te ontdekken. Na elkander gegroet te hebben en naar elkanders bezigheden te hebben gevraagd—van waar zij kwamen en waar zij heengingen—begonnen zij over de moeilijkheden te praten, en, zoo van het eene op het andere komend, werd er eindelijk de vraag te berde gebracht, wie van beiden wel het langst zou kunnen vasten, als de nood er toe drong. Zooals dit bij menschen en dieren altijd het geval is, betwistten zij elkander den voorrang, en ten slotte besloten zij tot een wedstrijd, en wel op deze wijze, dat telkens een van de twee een boom zou uitkiezen, terwijl de andere zóó lang zou moeten vasten, tot de boom vrucht zou hebben gedragen. De Boschrat koos een pruimeboom*, en toen zij dezen van een omheining had voorzien, sloot zij Schildpad daarbinnen op. Iedere maand bracht de Boschrat een bezoek aan de vrijwillige gevangene. „Nog levend?” riep de Boschrat. „Waarom niet”, antwoordde Schildpad, „er kan mij niets overkomen”. Iedere maand werd dit gesprek in den tijd van een half jaar herhaald, tot dat aan het einde van dien tijd de knoppen van den boom zich openden, de bloemen vrucht zetten en de vruchten waren afgevallen. De omheining werd toen verbroken en Schildpad wandelde zegevierend naar buiten. [95]
Nu was het de beurt aan de Boschrat, om te toonen, wat hij kon. Schildpad bouwde nu een omheining om een kasjoe-boom*, sloot de Boschrat op en vertrok. Toen een maand om was, kwam Schildpad te voorschijn en riep buiten de omheining de gevangene toe: „Wel, nog levend?” waarop Boschrat antwoordde: „Ja, in blakenden welstand”. Maar na de tweede maand, toen Schildpad dezelfde vraag kwam doen, kreeg zij ten antwoord: „Ja, nog levend, maar wat slapjes”. Maar nadat weêr een maand verloopen was en Schildpad terugkwam, kreeg zij geen antwoord meer, toen zij haar gewone vraag herhaalde. Boschrat was niet meer levend. De vliegen op het doode lichaam leefden echter wel.
De Boschrat had er niet aan gedacht, dat de kasjoe slechts eenmaal in de drie of vier jaar vruchten draagt.
No. 14. De bedrieger bedrogen. (C.)
Tawaroe-wari, een Caraïb, was eens op een dag zoo gelukkig een jongen arend te vangen. Hij bracht het dier naar zijn hut en maakte het spoedig geheel tam. Tawaroe-wari moest er nu geregeld op uitgaan, om jonge baboens voor hem te schieten. De brulapen vonden dit alles behalve prettig en zij belegden een groote vergadering, waarin zij beslisten, dat wanneer de man zich weêr in hunne nabijheid vertoonde om een hunner te dooden, zij hem in handen zouden zien te krijgen en hem aan een boom zouden ophangen. Toch schoot Tawaroe-wari korten tijd daarna weêr een baboen. Een menigte baboens daalden toen uit de boomen neêr, omsingelden en grepen hem. Daarna hingen zij hem met een liaan, die zij uit de boomen los maakten, op, en, na hem op vreeselijke wijze bevuild te hebben, lieten zij den man aan zijn lot over. Voor zij allen vertrokken, riepen zij: „zoo is het goed; nu zullen de arenden hem komen opeten.” Maar deze deden het niet, [96]want al spoedig daalde een groote arend, die den man van verre had geroken, tot dicht bij hem neêr, en vroeg hem, waarom hij op deze wijze was opgehangen. „Alleen, omdat ik baboens heb geschoten”, antwoordde hij. Toen de arend verder vroeg, voor welk doel hij ze noodig had en hij ten antwoord gaf, dat het was om voor een jongen arend, dien hij in zijn hut verzorgde, eten te hebben, maakte de vogel onmiddellijk de lianen los, gaf hem de vrijheid, en daarbij nog twee baboens voor den babyarend meê, die hij nog gauw even had bemachtigd.
No. 15. Tijger en Miereneter. (C.)
Eens op een dag ontmoette Tijger vriend Tamanoea* in het bosch en nam hem in de maling om zijn grappigen bek en zijn wonderlijke lompe voeten. „Geeft niets”, zei Tamanoea, „al is mijn bek lang en dun, en mijn voet lomp, toch kan ik, als het moet, even goed vleesch eten als jij, en als het er op aankomt, ben ik ook even sterk als jij.” „O, neen! dat heb je mis!” antwoordde Tijger. Zij begonnen nu te redetwisten. Ten slotte beweerde Tamanoea, dat hij wel eens een pijp in den mond van Tijger zou willen zien, en toen deze daarop zijn kaken wijd openzette en zijn slagtanden liet zien, lachte Tamanoea hem hartelijk uit, uitroepende: „ik geef daar weinig voor”. Dit ergerde Tijger, die van zijn kant vroeg, in Tamanoea’s mond te mogen zien. Toen deze deed, wat Tijger vroeg, riep deze uit: „Wat, durf jij beweren, dat je vleesch kan eten? Ik geloof er niets van; je hebt in je leven nog geen stukje vleesch geproefd”. „Je liegt”, antwoordde Tamanoea, „want dezen morgen heb ik mij nog te goed gedaan aan het overschot van een hert, dat jij hebt laten liggen. Als je mijn verteringsresten maar eens goed bekijkt, zal je moeten bekennen, dat ik minstens evenveel vleesch heb gegeten als jij”. Zij kwamen nu overeen, onmiddellijk [97]het bewijs te leveren, nadat Tamanoea gedaan had weten te krijgen, dat zij, terwijl zij bezig waren, beiden de oogen zouden sluiten. Maar niet zoodra hadden zij zich neergezet, of Tamanoea opende heimelijk zijn oogen en verwisselde haastig zijn excrementen voor die van zijn tegenpartij.
„Doe je oogen open”, riep nu Tamanoea, waarna beiden het resultaat in oogenschouw gingen nemen. Toen nu Tijger het verteringsoverschot van Tamanoea bekeek, begreep hij er niets van, en moest hij bekennen, dat zijn tegenstander inderdaad dien morgen vleesch had gegeten en nog wel een groote hoeveelheid ook.
Tijger begon nu te piekeren over hetgeen zijn eigen maal had opgeleverd, en zei: „Nog nooit is me zoo iets overkomen; ik moet stellig ziek zijn”. „Ziek ben je zeker”, antwoordde Tamanoea, „en slapjes ook; want hoewel mijn voeten zoo lomp zijn, door bij het loopen mijn teenen steeds naar buiten te buigen,39 kan ik toch even hard vooruitkomen als jij”.
Tijger werd door deze laatste grootspraak zóó geprikkeld, dat hij zich tot den strijd gereed maakte. Hij deed een sprong, maar op het zelfde oogenblik boog Tamanoea zijn kop voorover, en Tijger bij zijn ribben grijpend40 was hij nu meester in den strijd, en perste hij hem zóó hevig samen, dat Tijger dood neêrviel.41 [98]
No. 16. Hariwali en de Wonderboom. (A.)
Hariwali was een knappe, ijverige piaiman, die een groot deel van zijn tijd besteedde aan het openkappen van het bosch voor zijn twee vrouwen.42 In de hut, die hij met de vrouwen en kinderen bewoonde, hield ook zijn broeder verblijf. Wanneer hij de boomen aan het vellen was, gingen de vrouwen om beurten naar het veld, om hem kassiri* te brengen.
Op een keer gebeurde het nu, dat toen een der beide vrouwen als gewoonlijk met de verfrissching voor hem op weg was, zij haar schoonbroêr ontmoette, die eenige strengen itiriti* droeg, om er korven van te vlechten. „Hallo!” zei hij, „waar ga je heen?” waarop de vrouw antwoordde: „ik ga kassiri aan mijn man brengen, die op het veld is— maar je bevalt mij. Hou je ook van mij?” „Neen” zei hij, „dat heb je mis, en als ik van je hield, zou mijn broêr, die immers piaiman is, er spoedig achterkomen”. Maar de vrouw hield aan, probeerde hem te vleien, waarop zij eindelijk haar armen om zijn hals sloeg. Hij was maar een mensch, en liet zich ten slotte de liefkozingen van zijn schoonzuster welgevallen, nadat zij hem verzekerd had, dat haar man nooit te weten zou kunnen komen, dat zij hem bedrogen had.
Nadat zij weder elk hun eigen weg waren gegaan, brak de vrouw nog voor zij het veld bereikt had, haar kalebas, en verwondde zich de knie aan een puntig stammetje, waardoor ze begon te bloeden. Toen Hariwali haar zoo langzaam, kreupel loopend zag aankomen, vroeg hij haar, wat er gebeurd was. Zij kon niets anders doen, dan op de schram
en het bloed van de gewonde knie te wijzen, en hem te vertellen, dat zij een ongeluk had gehad en [99]gestruikeld was over een boomstronk. Maar haar man was een listige piaiman, en wist heel goed wat er gebeurd was, en hoewel hij toen niets liet merken, besloot hij zich niet alleen op haar, maar ook zijn andere vrouw te zullen wreken. Hij wilde haar nu zoo gauw mogelijk kwijt zijn, en verzocht haar, dadelijk terug te gaan.
Den volgenden morgen vroeg hij de vrouwen, hem te willen vergezellen, daar hij wilde gaan visschen en haar noodig had, om zijn vuur aan te leggen en zijn eten te koken. Toen zij goed en wel aan den poel waren aangekomen en de vrouwen het vuur gereed hadden, bracht haar man een schildpad, die zij levend op de heete asch neerlegden. Het dier kroop echter onmiddellijk van zijn onaangenaam verblijf weg. Dit was het kwade voorteeken, dat beider dood voorspelde. De piaiman had haar n.l. betooverd en zij dachten, dat zij de schildpad reeds gedood hadden. „Maar misschien is het vuur niet heet genoeg”, dacht de trouwelooze echtgenoote; „ik ga nog wat droog hout halen.”
Toen zij nu het hout aan het breken ging, bleek het buitengewoon hard te zijn, hetgeen haar deed uitroepen: Tata-Ketaiaba (=hard om te breken); maar nauwelijks had zij deze woorden uitgesproken, of zij vloog weg in de gedaante van een valk, een boel-tata, die zoo vaak zijn huiveringwekkend boel-tata laat hooren. Hariwali had dit gedaan.
Zijn andere vrouw had het erg warm gekregen, en ging daarom even naar de rivier, om een bad te nemen, maar nauwelijks was zij ondergedoken of Hariwali veranderde haar in een bruinvisch*. Zij was de eerste bruinvisch, die de rivieren ooit hebben voortgebracht. Toen Hariwali nu op deze wijze zijn vrouwen had gestraft, was de beurt aan zijn broêr. Hoe zou hij nu dezen laten boeten voor hetgeen hij jegens hem misdreven had?
Toen Hariwali in zijn hut terugkeerde, stond hij, dien [100]hij zocht, juist gereed om met pijl en boog op jacht te gaan. Hij begroette hem niet. Hij had zijn maatregelen genomen, en deze hadden goede uitwerking,
want terwijl diens pijlen nooit misten, troffen zij nog dienzelfden middag ongeloofelijk ver van het doel. Zijn broêr gaf het echter niet op en probeerde andermaal een vogel te raken, maar ook nu doodde hij het dier niet, dat slechts enkele veeren liet vallen. „Doe dat niet meer”, zei de vogel, „en kijk nu eens achter je”. En zoo waar, toen hij zich omdraaide, zag hij een uitgestrekt watervlak, en ontdekte hij tot zijn schrik, dat hij op een eiland was.
Maar hoe daar nu vandaan te komen? Hij wandelde heen en weêr, naar alle kanten zocht hij een uitweg, tot hij ten slotte een pad vond, maar geen gewoon pad, maar Jawahoe’s pad, dat leidde naar het verblijf van den Geest. Toen hij daar aankwam, pakte de Jawahoe hem beet en nam hem al zijn beenderen uit het lijf,43 behalve die van zijn vingers. Jawahoe was zoo vriendelijk dit te doen, opdat hij niet ontvluchten zou. De Geest legde hem nu in de hangmat en verzorgde hem zoo goed hij maar kon. De beenderen hing hij in een bundel op onder het dak van de hut.
Deze Jawahoe was een echte huisvader met een menigte zoons, die altijd met hun pijl en boog bezig waren. Wanneer nu hun pijlen stomp werden, behoefden zij maar naar de hangmat van den gevangene te gaan, om ze te scherpen aan diens beenige vingertoppen.
Al dien tijd jammerde Hariwali’s moeder des nachts over haar afwezigen zoon, die op zoo geheimzinnige wijze verdwenen was; maar ten laatste kreeg de piaiman, die zijn broêr door nooit falende tooverkunsten aan de macht van den Geest had overgeleverd, medelijden met haar, en [101]keerde hij naar zijn hut terug. Zoodra hij zijn moeder zag, beduidde hij haar, dat zij alles wat zij in de hut hadden, bijeen moest pakken, om ten spoedigste van de plaats weg te gaan; want dat zij allen het dorp voor altijd zouden moeten verlaten, wanneer hij er met zijn broêr zou terugkeeren.
De nacht vóór het vertrek liet de piaiman met zijn tooverrammelaar het shak shak hooren, waarmede hij zijn Geestenvrienden opriep—en ziet,