World: Close to the Earth

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The ground under the Red troops punching into central Poland and the Baltic littoral was no longer Russian ground; the air was no longer Russian air. But it was Russian-dominated air. The Red Air Force finally commanded it, almost as decisively as the troops below its airmen dominated the terrain.

At a forward observation post in the south, where the stench of high explosives and of the dead defiled the delicate scent of apple blossoms, leathery, bullet-headed Marshal Ivan Konev last week briefed his commanders. He spoke of the new power of the Red Air Force and of its first function: close, devoted support of troops on the ground. Almost as he spoke, swarms of Stormomks skimmed over the apple trees to blast the German troops, gun positions and tanks.

The tired, thinning Luftwaffe fought back, but feebly. A Moscow communique claimed 128 German planes shot down in one day. What the air attack had done to blast the way for Konev's tanks and infantry was another story.

At Dvinsk alone, nine German supply and troop trains were smashed and burned. Exploding ammunition dumps, touched off by Red bombers, spread fires and ruin. Tottering back on Warsaw, German troops were strafed on the roads by attack planes, medium bombers and fighters: among them were U.S.-built, Russian-manned Airacobras, Bostons and cannon-carrying Mitchells.

Burden and Credit. One man more than any other had a right to exult over this fruition of Red air power. Rescuing and rebuilding the Air Force, after Germany's assault had all but knocked it out, had been no one-man job. But one man shouldered the heaviest part of the burden and in Russia he gets the lion's share of the credit. He is Marshal Alexandr Alexandrovich Novikov, chief of the Red Air Force.

Moscow did not say where Novikov was last week—but he was probably steaming around, as usual, from one forward airfield to another, watching his airmen, shooting the breeze with them, cheering them on. If he had been able to do as he pleased, 42-year-old Marshal Novikov would doubtless have been flying combat missions himself. But his friend Joseph

Stalin does not permit that. Like other top air commanders, Novikov is forbidden to take battle risks.

Peeking Prohibited. For years before the war the Kremlin kept the details of its air establishment under such secrecy that foreign observers, and even reporters inside the U.S.S.R., wondered just what the Russians were flying and how, and what they intended doing in case of war.

Even after the Soviet Union began taking Lend-Lease equipment from the U.S., the Russians continued to be suspicious, closemouthed. With the turn of the tide in the Allied fortunes, the Russian reluctance to disclose information has just perceptibly relaxed. Though they still do not publicize their late warplane types, as the U.S. does, the main outlines of Russian air development have become fairly clear.