AIR RAID SAFETY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 95, 21 March 1938, Page 14

AIR RAID SAFETY.

BRITAIN’S SECRET DEVICE. HINT BY AIR MINISTER. LONDON, March 8. Britain has a secret device against air raiders and it will remain a secret unless war should come. This device, which has been tested in conditions approximating as closely as possible to those of actual warfare was guardedly hinted at by the Minister for Air (Lord Swinton) when he referred to the progress ill air defence and the promising investigations being pursued.

It is neither a balloon barrage, the efficiency of which‘is dubious in view of modern aircraft speed, nor any type of so-called death ray. Expenditure on the Royal Air Force this year will be six times that of 1935 and the cost of London’s balloon barrage, will be £340,000. No provision is made for provincial barrages, although, if further tests are successful, these will be organised. While explosives are considered to be the worst air raid peril, incendiary bombs run fairly close. The London County Council holds that London’s fire-fighting services must pe strengthened to meet this risk, especially since the communications so essential to fire-fighting might be seriously dislocated and the water supplies in industrial areas might be inadequate. The advocacy of ruthless air warfare by General Goering, German Air Minister, coming, as it did, from Herr Hitler’s firs't lieutenant is regarded as leaving little hope for the British proposals for the abolition of air bombing and discounts the chances of Royal Air Force limitations which Mr Chamberlain considers essential to a Four Power pact. Britain’s answer is her £102,000,000 Air Force vote, with expectation of a large increase in 1939.