Word: far
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Admiral Mahan died in 1914, too early to realize that World War I would produce another kind of power, air power. Far swifter, far more plastic, perhaps far deadlier than any weapon previously invented by man, its great potentialities nevertheless remained, after 25 years of development and 1,000 hours of the war that would ultimately prove its potency, almost as untried as the 2,000,000 troops facing each other last week across the Rhine...
...merely introduced aviation to warfare. Ethiopia and China were little more than proving grounds. So far as is known, the biggest concentrated air bombardment to date occurred when new-type bombs whistled down on Barcelona New Year's Eve, 1938. At various times dozens of Fascist bombers operated in formation over Spain and, according to German accounts, as many as 800 attacked Polish fortifications in concert last month. But to airmen the world over this still remains white-chip stuff...
...power. The Douhet theory holds that major wars can be won, and won quickly (while ground troops are mobilized as they are on the Western Front), by unrestricted mass destruction poured on civilian populations, their communications and utilities, from thousands of airplanes carrying hundreds of tons of bombs. So far War II has seen...
...Biggest air attack so far came last week. Late one rainy afternoon, a British naval squadron ran across two or three German vessels "southwest of Norway." They gave pursuit, and chased the German ships all night. Next day a force of German bombers appeared and attacked, echelon after echelon. Germans later claimed ten direct hits, six with heavy bombs, four with medium. The British reported that one shot came close enough to splatter splinters on a cruiser. Two German planes, either crippled or lost, made forced landings in Danish territory, one went down off the Danish coast...
From 1933 on, Göring, a barrel of explosive black powder, and Milch, a cool steel machine, planned and produced. They built a carefully integrated but decentralized plant, with 1,700 factory units scattered all over Germany, most of them far from the hot French border. They established a military training course so brutally stepped up that only the fittest survive. They designed a simple series of warplanes, sensibly sticking to a few constantly modified basic types...