AIR RAID DAMAGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 296, 13 December 1940, Page 11

AIR RAID DAMAGE.

FAILURE OF NAZIS.

U.S. EXPERTS ASTONISHED.

(By JOSEPH AESOP AXD ROBERT

KIXTXER.)

WASHINGTON, October 16.

Since the German* resumed intensive bombing of London the same old rumours have begun to circulate again, that the extent of damage is being concealed, that the British war effort has been crippled, and that in short, the battle of Britain has been lost. It is difficult to know whether these rumour® are spread by interested persons, or simply arise from the horrifying news pictures of Ixmib-wrought destruction in the British capital. At any rate, unless American military observers have been grossly deceived the rumours are still without real foundation in fact.

The truth is that American experts are astonished at the Germans' strange failure to hit more vital centres than they have. Only three months ago, the German air strategy was considered invincible. Now German air strategy is being held largely to blame for the Germans' poor success in the battle of Britain. A Target Mystery. The American exj>erts constantly ask themselvc*, "Why have the Germans failed to concentrate their tire on vulnerable military objectives 1" The German attack seems to have been almost at •haphazard. Much destruction has been achieved in inanv residential and buslines.* areas of London, especially in the working class districts. But so far, this has only angered the British and strengthened their morale, whereas a *mall percenage of the same destruction in re-allv vital centres would have greatlv minced their military strength. A sin"le example illustrates th« nature of mystery. Everyone must recall the intensive German assaults on Buckingham Palace. Thev cost the Germans several planes, and produced no results except the rum of the Palace chapel and a tremendous increase in the [prestige of the Kin? and Queen. \et jno such intensive assaults have been mado on Woolwich Arsenal, a rich t*'"" pet, filled with war stores, outside London's encircling ring of anti-aircraft guns, and nearer than London to the German airports across the Channel. It woul<l have been serious for t&e British ii Woolwich Arsenal had been as badly knocked about as Buckingham Palace. But in the entire course of the Battle of Britain, it has been hit only twice, and both times by light bombs, doing extremely superficial damage. The Spartan Soldier*. Some experts think the solution of the mystery lies in j>oor German psychology, which had led Reich Marshal Hermann Goerinjr and his aides to look for a collapse of civilian morale. Others accept the simpler explanation that Goering's pilots have been sent to bomb almost at random, because they could not stand the f?aff of constant attack against the stronger defences concentrated around truly military objectives.

The superiority of the British over the German pilots is by now an old story, but the concrete examples of it described in the dispatches are needed to underline its real significance. Some of these are as stirring as the hero tales

in tliu old 'books. For instance, one American observer witnessed a fantastic Conflict between two British Hurricanes and a formation of thirty German bombers and fighters. The Germans were flying rapidly up the Thames Estuary, evidently headed for the London docks, when the Hurricanes zoomed down from the clouds overhead. German Chiefs Distrustful? As the two British planes went through the German formation, the German leader burst into flames and plummeted to earth. Before the Hurricanes could come out of their dives, ten Germans had sheared off to the north, another six had changed their course southward, while the rest of the forma-

tion had simply turned tail and flew back down the Thames. When last seen

the Hurricanes were pursuing the two smaller groups of German planes, having got two more of them.

The German pilots have caused a different sort of asrton/ishment. One group of them brought down near the Channel coast actually became indignant when their cajrtors refused to take them to "the nearest German headquarters." There have been numerous other signs, suoh as the constant mixing and shifting of German air unit®, that the German commanders do not trust the spirit of their men.—N.A.N.A.