POINTS FROM LETTERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVXIII, Issue 53, 4 March 1937, Page 27

POINTS FROM LETTERS.

AIR RAIDS. As I partly suspected. "W.A.L." has liecn reading too many highly imaginative imvclA ond eenxationai journals. Worse *till. he has been to the mo\ ies! watching ?t;igrd bombing displays and in-H-k air raids. Result: A positive var- ..f aerial jitters, with the charac-lorir-tu: delusion that someone sooner ~r later is going'to sock him with a ton demolition bomb or aerial torpedo, and an urge to convince everyone else that/they, too, are going to * stop a j.Kkot in the sweet by and by if they ■••foyn tft the lesions of the last" war and take no notice of the fearful advances in all forms of destruction." Though •revere hw case is amenable to drastic treatment. During the World War no battleship was sunk by bombs and no army was defeated from the air; no city was ■destroyed and no populace was wiped out or demoralised. The German people, were not demoralised: they were disillusioned. In all the air raids on London during four years of war only about 700 people were killed by bombs ■dropped mainly by Zeppelins—dirigibles, mark you, more deadly than 'planes, because they can hover over their targets. In one raid by seven Zeppelins the net result was one pig killed. All the raid* and attacks in which non-com-batants were the victims (the Lusitania, for example) only increased the war hysteria and hate and led to a more determined prosecution of the war by both sides. Though modern 'planes are better than the war 'planes they are no different in essentials. They are faster, their "ceiling" is higher, 'they can lift heavier loads; but they cannot rise vertically; they cannot* remain stationary in the air; they cannot be effectively armoured, and as bombers they retain the insurmountable difficulty of having to discharge their projectiles when travelling et high speeds; and the enormous take-off or alighting area required precludes their operation from aircraft carriers. The bomber is a cowardly weapon, and it suffers from thp disadvantage* of cowardice. For ■one thing, it cannot stand and fight; it <-an only hit, and hit' blindly, and run. The Spanish civil war has proved what a bogy the ''air menace" is. Each night before retiring. '"W.A.L." should repeat the following: "I am not scared of anything on land,, sea or in the air. ■end neither by word nor deed am I going to help armament manufacturers teell their wares." W. G. DEUCHAR.