"DAMNABLE THING"

Evening Star, Issue 25224, 11 July 1944, Page 6

"DAMNABLE THING"

EISENHOWER CONDEMNS THE FLYING BOMS SCIENTISTS WORKING TO EVOLVE COUNTERS (Roc. 9.55 a.m.) LONDON, July 10. Describing the flying bomb as a " damnable thing," General Eisenhower said that a group of great scientists was working on the .problem, and they may evolve something more effective than the counter-measures being used at present, states (Reuter's correspondent .at an advanced command post of Allied headquarters. General Eisenhower _ added that everybody on the Allied side appreciated the potential seriousness of such a weapon, and no one was taking lightly the experience which London and Southern England had to undergo. The Allies had been keeping the weapon down to a certain extent. He personally was as concerned as anybody about finding a means of getting it down and preventing it becoming more serious.

The flying bombs, from the Germans' viewpoint, gave them a cheap air force. The German bomber attacks were wild. They jettisoned bombs from Land's End to Dover. The flying bomb was just as effective—and a damned sight cheaper. There did not seem to be any indication that they would become \yithiii the measurable future more efficient than now. If the flying bomb was not developed markedly beyond its present stage, it would not be a very effective weapon except for hitting a large area like a city. It certainly was not a pinpoint agent. CHILDREN EVACUATED.

Nearly 10.000 children left London yesterday, and an additional 10,000 are leaving to-day. Children of all ages, carefully labelled, crowded the stations. A welfare officer, supervising the departure of oiie trainload of children, said: "They are easier to manage this time than in the 1940 blitz. This in not a new experience to many children." Reports reaching London, say, that residents of country and provincial districts notice that the cluldrcn evacuaed from London this week are very different from the evacuees of 1940. The children look healthier and are better dressed, and their morale is quite unshaken. The evacuation of thousands of women and children has caused a food glut in London. People who have remained are existing mainly on "shelter meals," stocks of rationed goods previously in short supply being left to accumulate in.the shops. TOLL OF THE BOMBS. A licensee's wife and two 'of his customers were killed and a score of other customers were injured when a flying bomb hit a crowded public house shortly before closing time last night. Rescue squado were still digging to-day for two more believed to be trapped beneath tho wreckage. American soldiers, fully equipped with rescue apparatus, greatly helped the civil defence squads in another flying bomb incident in which seven persons were killed and others injured. A flying bomb shot down by a night fighter landed near a house in Southern England early this morning as a midwife was answering a telephone summons to a patient. The midwife was smothered by broken glass, but she walked to the patients' home with her face bleeding from cuts, and she helped to bring twins into the world before having her injuries attended.