INVASION PLANS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 70, 23 March 1940, Page 4

INVASION PLANS.

I SEIZURE BY BELGIANS. IIICTIIIKVKI) FIIOM FIKK. T1 is not a bad thing to be reminded now and then that tlie one element of which account nhvavs lias to be taken in war is chance (writes •'Janus*' in the "Spectator"' of January *2(5). The story of the German aeroplane that camc down in Belgium a fortnight or so ago is the latest proof of that. Bit by bit the story hn« leaked out. and there are enough bits by this time to make a whole. A German officer returning to the front with important papers, instead of going by train, persuaded a fellow officer to take him bv air. The aeroplane came down by mistake in Belgium; the officer immediately tried to burn his papers, but was stopped by Belgian soldiers, who took them from him. When under interrogation in a. guard room he suddenly snatched the papers from the table where they had been put. and Hung them in the fire. But a Belgian officer retrieved them in time at the cost of a few burns, and on examination they were found to contain full plans for an invasion of Belgium. There ecenis to be good reason to think that, but for their discovery the invasion would actually have taken place. In the la>t war one of the main reasons for the failure of the Xivclic offensive in 1017 was the capture of a French soldier with detailed plans on him. On the other side, it is impossible to estimate how much we owed to the fore- ' knowledge of German plans due to the capture ol the current code book when ( the cruiser Magdeburg was wrecked in ! the Baltic. Money, munition?, morale— all vital; yet chance can go far to outweigh t hem.