BIG BERTHA WEEK

Evening Star, Issue 19894, 16 June 1928, Page 22

BIG BERTHA WEEK

RECALLED IN PARIS SHIVERY WAR EXPERIENCE Paris has been recalling with a shiver that it was just ten years ago last month since Big Bertha began dropping shells into her midst. That is the kind of memory which gives real meaning to talk of disarmament and security. For there is no one who lived through that first morning of Bertha’s performance who will ever recall it without the earnest hope that it will never occur again. It was at breakfast time—B.3o exactly—when the. first explosion went off with a bang which was heard distinctly all over, the city. Immediately firemen sounded the air raid alarm, and those who had not gone to work decided they would stay home out of the streets until the supposed raid was over. A quarter of an hour passed and then there was another bang. Everybody began to bo mystified, and when another quarter of an hour passed without further signs of attack the streets began to fill, though all public traffic stopped and people went their way afoot, watching a fleet of French airplanes which filled the sky and, it was supposed, had driven the daring attackers away. At 10 o’clock the Ministry of War issued a communique which stated blandly that a few enemy airplanes which had crossed the linos at a great altitude and dropped some bombs on the city had been driven off. But every fifteen minutes there came a now explosion. They were all in the north-cast section of the city. THE PEOPLE LEARN THE TRUTH. ]t was not till 3 o’clock that a telephone call to the editor of the ‘ Temps ’ gave the truth to the mystified people. The ‘Temps’ was just ready to go fo press when the Ministry of War rang up. “Hold on to the tabic,” said the voice of the officer in charge of official information, “ I have news for you that will surprise you.” Then he dictated a new official communique telling the Parisians that they were being bombarded With the usual official optimism the communique added: “Measures are being taken to destroy the enemy gun.” It was, however, only sixteen days later that Bertha ceased to fire,-and then because she was worn out. She had curious habits. She started firing regularly every morning at the same time, halted two hours for lunch, and continued again until sunset. Very soon Paris was quite accustomed to the noise and sense of danger.' Many thousands of women and children were sent out of the city, but eve*u on the first afternoon crowds wandered up and down the boulevards interested and excited, but far from showing any signs of alarm. During those first sixteeu days 183 shells fell in Paris and 120 in the suburbs. They billed 109 men, 132 women, and 14 children, and wounded 621 people.. Like' much that the Germans did, the bombardment was a mistake. It stiffened rather than dismayed the civilian population, and when the bombardment began again some weeks later Foch's offensive had begun, and neither night airplane raids nor day bombardments_ could repress the new wave of optimism which began to sweep the country. But if Frenchmen are always worrying about “next time” it is not to be wondered at.