Powerful Units From Dominions Now Available to Britain; Air Training Scheme Ahead of Schedule London, Sept. 18.
Speaking in the House of Lords yesterday Viscount Caldecote, Secretary of State for the Dominion: stated that in the first half of Septem ber over 2,000 civilians, including many women and children, had been killed and about 8,000 wounded by air bombardments.
Viscount Caldecote went into the war situation in more detail on certain points than did the Prime Minister in the House of Commons.
He referred to Canadian, Australian and New Zealand forces available in Britain to repel invasion, should it come, and also to units of the Royal Canadian Navy and the naval contingent from New Zealand.
In the air, he added, the Canadian fighter squadron had helped magnificently to increase the enemy's losses. Britain had had invaluable assistance from the Royal Australian Air Force. More recently there had arrived a contingent from Southern Rhodesia and there were many pilots from all the Dominions and indeed from all parts of the Empire.
Lord Caldecote mentioned the remarkable contribution made by New-found land in defence of the British Isles both by sea and air. The Empire air training scheme was in advance of schedule and Britain would shortly be receiving a flow of highly skilled pilots and air crews to redress the balance in the air and ultimately to give Britain air superiority:
In the Middle East an important! part was being played by forces of South Africa. The South African air Force had distinguished itself by in-fioting heavy losses on the enemy.
The Dominions had not confined their help to military, naval and air contingents but were producing eve: increasing quotas of munitions and military supplies of many kinds, Turning to the Mediterranean, he said naval forces recently swept the sea from end to end for six days without any naval action being taken by the enemy. Meanwhile convoys of troops and materials were arriving in the Near East, taking fighting men and supplies to fill the gaps left there by the collapse of France—Reuter,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.