THE V2 BOMB

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 76, 31 March 1945, Page 4

THE V 2 BOMB

To the Editor

I do not understand why Trevor Smith regards the V 2 bomb as "most ingenious," "fantastic," "unlike anything else we have yet seen," "aweinspiring," etc. What is it that impresses the journalists so much? I was in England until November, 1941, and am in regular correspondence with my own folk. I can find no hint in their letters of anything more than an extension of German nuisance contrivances. Trevor Smith seems to respond to this nuisance just as Hitler's horrible, halfdeveloped mind, devoted to cruelty and terrorism, would wish. This V 2 is a large-scale projectile, 10 or 12 times the weight of the heaviest gun projectiles. It has also a range about 10 times as great. But the gun can make accurate target practice and the V 2 is but planned to fall within a large area. The V 2 travels faster than sound. That seems to impress the newspaper writers immensely. But I think our long-range guns of all calibres have been shooting projectiles with velocities greater than sound this many a long year. But what does it matter? Is there any peculiar value in achieving that velocity? After all, one may at any time be struck by lightning. And we could guard against that if we wore lightning-conductor millinery. Much German energy and material must have gone to the making, of these "monstrous" things instead of being utilised against our fighting men. Our civilians will not grudge this indirect help to the front line. One thing I cannot imagine— What an "awe-inspired" Wiltshire shepherd or hedger-and-ditcher would look like. God bless them, they are not made that way. REAR-ADMIRAL R. N. LAWSON.