German Scientists Work On Fire Lily' Rocket For Soviet

Northern Advocate, 27 September 1949, Page 5

German Scientists Work On Fire Lily' Rocket For Soviet

BERLIN, Mon. (11.30 a.m.). —German scientists are producing for Russia a transocean rocket they designed for Hitler just before the war ended, Soviet zone informants claimed today, states the Associated Press.

' The informants, who have access to offices of the Sovietbacked East German police, said a mammoth underground munitions plant at Peenemunde, on the Baltic coast, is turning out rockets at full speed. Allied intelligence officers said they knew of “certain activity” at Peenemunde, but declined to elaborate. The new rocket, said the German informants, was dubbed “Fire Lily” by the Nazis, who never had a chance to use it.

The name comes from the fact that the rocket “blossoms” into eight to 10 separate aerial bombs when it arrives over the target, scattering des truction over a three-square-mile area. The report says its range and accuracy are sufficient to hit a target 5000 miles' away. Peenemunde was wrecked by Allied bombs during the war and then rebuilt by Russia with labour from war prisoner camps. Production of "fire lilies” is said to be carried on in vast underground caverns which the Nazis fitted out for rocket and torpedo plants and testing grounds. The Installation is now guarded by a barricade of high-voltage wires and mine fields, and patrolled by 3500 members of the Soviet security police Flotillas of speedboats are used to guard the seaward approaches and all supplies for tha plant and workers are delivered by sea for security reasons.

that atomic weapons were dangerous in the hands of the Commurtists, who believed that any means were justified to gain their ends. “However,” he added, “we must not get panicky. The Russians may feel that they can blackmail us with threats of using atomic weapons. “We must not give in. It never pays to pay blackmail, least of all to the Communists.”

Mr Dulles, who was formerly acting chairman of the United States delegation to the United Nations, said: “I have dealt with top Russian leaders almost continuously for over four years. “We have had some rough encounters, but the wisdom and firmness of our bi-partisan (two party) foreign policy has made peace more likely. "War is less likely now than was the case a year ago.”

Questions

Captain R. Blackburn (Labour) has applied to Mr Speaker for permission to ask the Prime Minister (Mr Attlee) in Parliament to elucidate Britain’s official announcement on the Russian “atomic explosion.” Consent of the Speaker is necessary

before questions can be allowed at this week’s special Parliamentary session, called to debate devaluation. Mr Churchill will most likely put down a private-notice question to Mr Attlee tomorrow, asking for more information about atom bomb developments. . , . If he asks Mr Speaker for permission to ask such a question, it is unlikely that, coming from the Opposition leader, it would be refused. However, no further Government statement of importance is expected in reply to it, and the Opposition is not likely to press for a debate at this point. In Paris today, Professor Thibaud, director of the Lyons Physics Institute, said Soviet Russia seemed to have leaped a year ahead of the most optimistic forecast in the atomic energy competition. Professor Thibaud said he considered Russia’s stock of plutonium and her Itoxnic energy installations in general must be greater than those now operating in Britain. , , France had passed definitely to the rank of a second-rate nation. Her state of unpreparedness for any scientific war which might come was even worse than in 1939-40. France not only lacked the neces-

gary laboratory stocks of plutonium • and giant atomic piles, but she had not even the number of research workers and engineers she needed.

Power

Any one of a dozen countries would have the power to threaten the survival of mankind in the not far distant future, said the Canadian Mihister of External Affairs (Mr Lester Pearson), in a broadcast tonight from New York. He said knowledge of the atomic explosion in Russia should not come as a surprise, or alter Western policies in any way.

*lt should not alarm us any more than we should be alarmed by the very existence of the bomb itself,” Mr Pearson added. It merely underlined the conclusion that atomic energy must be brought under strict international control. This would mean making absolutely sure that no bombs were being made by anyone—that atomic energy was being developed for constructive purposes alone. Senator John Foster Dulles (Repub-lican-New York) said in a broadcast

Pacific Airlines Increase Fares

SYDNEY, Tue. (10 a.m.)— Because „ the devaluation of sterling had increased their costs, the Pacific airlines have increased their passenger fares by 43 per cent. The passenger fare from Sydney to San Francisco -is now £285/15/-, instead of £2OO. The America-to-AuStralia fare remains at 640 dollars (EA2BS/6/8). , fhe companies have increased #*ight charges proportionately. The companies are the British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines, Pan American Airways, and Canadian Pacific Airlines.