ON FRENCH COAST

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 30, 3 August 1940, Page 11

ON FRENCH COAST

THREATENED BARRAGE OF BRITAIN

LONDON REACTION

NO SPECIAL ALARM CAUSED

(British Official Wireless.)

(Received August 3, 11.30 a.m.) RUGBY, August 2.

Some rather highly coloured accounts are circulating of multiple lines of artillery which have been emplaced by the Germans along the 'French coast with a view to bringing part of the south-east coast of England under a concentrated -barrage. The range is quite feasible for big modern guns, and military circles in London show no particular surprise and no special alarm at these reports.

Under the present conditions stories of this nature are not likely to have gone into circulation without the approval of the German military authorities. They are undoubtedly a picturesque form of advertisement of the German preparations against Britain, but the extent to which they correspond with actuality is felt here to be more questionable.. The Germans may be trusted not to neglect the obvious possibilities of long-range artillery— the use of which is equally open to the British—but they will also be aware <S. its. limitations in practice. Fire at cross-Channel range would not be accurate. The guns themselves wear out quickly. Owing to the thickness of the shell-case, the burst is relatively ineffective. Unless fire is quite erratic, it would require to.be directed by air observation, and aircraft intruding over the British coast would not be treated by the R.A.F. with any special lenience. .

For these' and other reasons longrange bombardment of the English coast is regarded by competent, circles here as expensive, uneconomical, and rather ineffective.