Chamberlain, Munich and air rearmament

sir – The letter (November 14) from Air Commodore Michael Allisstone on the policy of Neville Chamberlain as seen by Harry Eeles (in 1938 a personal staff officer to my father, Cyril Newall, as Chief of the Air Staff) rings true.

As a boy I knew Harry Eeles quite well, and he was a very bright man. My father rarely spoke about “war matters”, but I got to know how distressing it was for him when time and again he was prevented from having enough resources to recruit more airmen and build more planes, which anyone could see were needed.

Thank God for the bravery of all our airmen who saved us in our hour of need. Lord Newall

Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire

sir – I have every respect for Air Commodore Allisstone, but I think he is missing the point. The RAF was crucial to our survival in 1940 because Hitler had reached the Channel.

The German state was less prepared for war in many ways in September 1938. There was a better organised opposition to Hitler then in the German military, some of whom were attempting to contact Britain.

The Munich policy demoralised many in Western democracies, and Stalin took the catastrophic decision to ally with Hitler only after the Munich debacle. Italy was worried about German power and even mobilised its troops on its German border.

Czechoslovakia’s Skoda arms factories had been central to the war capacity of the Austro-hungarian empire, and the country had a strongly defendable mountain frontier. After a costless invasion, Germany gained its armaments capacity and large numbers of Czech tanks, used to great effect in the 1940 invasion of France.

The war that began in 1939 was catastrophic, and Britain was bankrupt by the end. Chamberlain justifiably carried the can for appeasement’s failure, and rightly lost the confidence of Commons and nation. Trevor Bedeman

Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire