MADNESS LET LOOSE

Evening Star, Issue 22956, 13 May 1938, Page 7

MADNESS LET LOOSE

NEW AIR TERROR BARCELONA TESTING GROUND For most of us March 17 is associated with St. Patrick’s festival, but for one and a-half million inhabitants of Barcelona this date in 1938 will stand out as “ Black Thursday.” For it was on i St. Patrick’s Day' that a new type of I bomb demonstrated iu Barcelona how ' modern, well-constructed blocks of flats I can lx; torn up like tissue paper; and how just two or three such bombs are sufficient to wreck a neighbourhood ! (writes H. W. Buckley, in the London ‘ Daily Telegraph ’). There are no laggard feet now in | Barcelona when the sirens wail out. i heralding death Reporting this war, ■ I have seen scores of bombardments, j But the way a few 5001 b bombs ripped j a whole district to pieces is something the like of which I had never seen before. Henceforth I hope nobody will take any notice of those optimists who tell the public that “ aerial bombardment is limited in effect.” I shudder to think what would happen in London or Manchester if a few score of such super mixtures of high explosive wore dropped there. NEW 5001 b BOMBS. If the people of Britain could have seen the wreckage and shambles of the Calle de las Cortes Catalanas (the Callo Cortes) in Barcelona in the afternoon of Jtarch. 17 j if this scene of blood and

desolation left behind by the Savoia “ 79’s ” could be portrayed adequately at home the 1,000,000 volunteers wanted for air raid precautions would be on offer within a few hours. So terrible was the blast which blew at least 300 people to death and wounded as many, that all kinds of stories have been invented. It has been said that a truckload of high explosives driving down the Calle Cortes was hit by a bomb. But capable foreign observers with no axe to grind do not agree. The theory still holds i that Barcelona that day was the testI ing laboratory for a new-typo 250-kilo- : gramme (5001 b) bomb which creates a new menace to world civilisation. This lovely Mediterranean .city is singularly defenceless. It stands on the edge of the sea, and the planes are on it almost before warning can be given. Neither sufficient chaser planes for constant patrol nor enough anti-aircraft I batteries are available, owing to the difficulties in the way of the Governj ment in purchasing war material. Even ■ if they were, 1 doubt whether it would be possible to prevent raids by small groups of planes such as those which raid Barcelona—that is to say, five or six fast-fiving bombers, which are in and out almost before the sirens havo ceased warning. There remains an alternative . reprisals. It is a method singularly unI fitted to civil war, and especially this | war in Spain, which has so many complex aspects. SHELTER PROBLEMS. Barcelona is bombed from two places. There is the base at Palma, on Majorca Island, 200 miles as a bomber flies. Here Italian bombers and chase'rs are stationed. Colonel Mari is bombing chief. Colonel Pizzoni is in charge of the chasers, - whose mission is to de-1

fend the island. The mainland is too far away for them to accompany the bombers. Here are stationed Fiats C.R.32 and Savoia 81 and 79. From Pollensa, on the north of the island, come Heinkel 59 craft from the base run. by Germans under Major Halinghausen. The raiders swing in over the port, fly over the town, swing round to the left, and leave again over the sandy coastline behind Montjuich Castle. Where shall Barcelona’s men. women, and children hide? Refuges shelter just 90,000. The underground railway takes tens of thousands, but the entrances jam with people. If a bomb falls near such an entrance it may mow down scores; it has done. Down to the cellar? Suppose the house collapses. Stay on a ground floor? If a bomb falls in the street it may blow you to pieces. There is no safety outside properly constructed shelters. Reasonable safety alone lies, in keeping off the street and hugging as closely as possible a strong wall well away from windows War has virtually no limits now—unless someone can produce the muchheralded magic ray which will stop petrol engines and thus paralyse our enemy the aeroplane. But, until then, woe betide those who are weak in the air; their fate will be that of Barcelona multiplied many times over. March 17 is a warning to civilisation that there is stark madness loose in Europe. Travelling at night through the underground, its platforms jammed so tight with peonle taking shelter that I could hardly find my way out of the train, I thought of friends at home who smugly tell me: “It can’t happen here!’’ . It is not only Barcelona which is suffering thus. The small coast towns are 1 in worse plight. Have you heard of

Tortosa? A small town of 32,000 uw habitants nestling under great mountains. Those German and Italian raiding planes have literally wrecked tha town. _ Now it, is empty, but three or four times a day the raiders come and bomb what remains. . Or there is the charming town of Tarragona, which was a great Roman provincial capital when London was undreamed of. In the last 12 days—42 raids. Think of the nerves of tha women and children there. Scores of villages along this beautiful coast show terrible scars. AH day, and night the raiders from Majorca bomb and machine-gun roads and villages. Futile to think that because you are indoors you are safe from machinegunning. These machine guns shoot heavy slugs which do great damage. Some time ago I was the object of a ittle target practice from a big threemotor Junkers, and one of his “bullets ” ripped away half the metal dashboard of my car. Thus stark terror is being sown from Majorca along the Mediterranean coast from Port Bou to Valencia day by day. But the Spaniards are showing great toughness. Bombs are bad propaganda. It is conceivable that by sheer terrorism from the air a nation could b« forced to surrender to its enemies. ,Bufe not generations w'ould remove the undying hatred born in those defeated by, such means.